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This page is not yet complete.
It is either a rough draft or has been copied over from the legacy documentation.

Data Management#

Where is my data saved?#

You can find the current project data directory with the command projects.dir. Everything is stored in this folder or a subdirectory. Similarly, you can find the logs directory with the command projects.logs_dir. Brightway uses the appdirs library to select an appropriate, platform-specific path, namely:

Windows

C:\Documents and Settings\<User>\Application Data\Local Settings\pylca\Brightway3

macOS

/Users/<User>/Library/Application Support/Brightway3

Linux

/home/<User>/.local/share/Brightway3

How do I change the location of my data directory?#

You can specify a custom data directory path by setting the environment variable BRIGHTWAY2_DIR. Brightway will raise an OSError if this is not a writable directory.

Warning

This is not recommended for use by beginners, but if you have multiple or non-standard installations of Brightway it might be useful.

Unix (Z Shell)

To change the storage location of Brightway data to a directory of your choice, set an environment variable in the default shell of your Unix system.

Note

Replace <PATH> with your desired absolute directory path and restart the shell.

echo 'export BRIGHTWAY2_DIR=<PATH>' >> ~/.zshenv

Windows (Power Shell)

To change the storage location of Brightway data to a directory of your choice, set an environment variable using the Windows Power Shell.

Note

Replace <PATH> with your desired absolute directory path and restart the shell.

[Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable("BRIGHTWAY2_DIR", "<PATH>", "User")

How do I backup my data?#

Each project is just a subdirectory, and this can be backed up using any normal tools, including cloud backups like Dropbox. You can save a snapshot of entire project directory with backup_data_directory, or save a single project with backup_project_directory. Both functions return the filepath of the created archive file.