Copying Amazon DocumentDB cluster snapshots

In Amazon DocumentDB, you can copy snapshots within the same AWS Region or to a different AWS Region. You can also copy shared snapshots to your account in the same AWS Region or in a different AWS Region. For more information on sharing snapshots, see Sharing Amazon DocumentDB cluster snapshots.

Note

Amazon DocumentDB bills you based upon the amount of backup and snapshot data you keep and the period of time that you keep it. For more information about the storage associated with Amazon DocumentDB backups and snapshots, see Understanding backup storage usage. For pricing information about Amazon DocumentDB storage, see Amazon DocumentDB Pricing.

Copying shared snapshots

You can copy snapshots shared to you by other AWS accounts. If you are copying an encrypted snapshot that has been shared from another AWS account, you must have access to the AWS KMS encryption key that was used to encrypt the snapshot. For more information, see Handling encryption.

Copying snapshots across AWS Regions

When you copy a snapshot to an AWS Region that is different from the source snapshot's AWS Region, each copy is a full snapshot. A full snapshot copy contains all of the data and meta data required to restore the Amazon DocumentDB cluster.

Limitations

The following are some limitations when you copy snapshots:

• If you delete a source snapshot before the target snapshot becomes available, the snapshot copy may fail. Verify that the target snapshot has a status of AVAILABLE before you delete a source snapshot.

• You can have up to five snapshot copy requests in progress to a single destination Region per account.

• Depending on the AWS Regions involved and the amount of data to be copied, a cross-region snapshot copy can take hours to complete. In some cases, there might be a large number of cross-region snapshot copy requests from a given source AWS Region. In these cases, Amazon DocumentDB might put new cross-region copy requests from that source AWS Region into a queue until some in-progress copies complete. No progress information is displayed about copy requests while they are in the queue. Progress information is displayed when the copy starts.

Handling encryption

You can copy a snapshot that has been encrypted using an AWS KMS encryption key. If you copy an encrypted snapshot, the copy of the snapshot must also be encrypted. If you copy an encrypted snapshot within the same AWS Region, you can encrypt the copy with the same AWS KMS encryption key as the original snapshot, or you can specify a different AWS KMS encryption key. If you copy an encrypted snapshot across Regions, you can't use the same AWS KMS encryption key for the copy as used for the source snapshot, because AWS KMS keys are Region-specific. Instead, you must specify an AWS KMS key valid in the destination AWS Regionn.

The source snapshot remains encrypted throughout the copy process. For more information, see Data protection in Amazon DocumentDB.

Note

For Amazon DocumentDB cluster snapshots, you can't encrypt an unencrypted cluster snapshot when you copy the snapshot.

Parameter group considerations

When you copy a snapshot across Regions, the copy doesn't include the parameter group used by the original Amazon DocumentDB cluster. When you restore a snapshot to create a new cluster, that cluster gets the default parameter group for the AWS Region it is created in. To give the new cluster the same parameters as the original, you must do the following:

1. In the destination AWS Region, create an Amazon DocumentDB cluster parameter group with the same settings as the original cluster. If one already exists in the new AWS Region, you can use that one.

2. After you restore the snapshot in the destination AWS Region, modify the new Amazon DocumentDB cluster and add the new or existing parameter group from the previous step. For more information, see Modifying an Amazon DocumentDB cluster.

Copying a cluster snapshot

You can copy an Amazon DocumentDB cluster using the AWS Management Console or the AWS CLI, as follows.

Using the AWS Management Console

To make a copy of a cluster snapshot using the AWS Management Console, complete the following steps. This procedure works for copying encrypted or unencrypted cluster snapshots, in the same AWS Region or across Regions.

1. Sign in to the AWS Management Console, and open the Amazon DocumentDB console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/docdb.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Snapshots, and then choose the button to the left of the snapshot that you want to copy.

   Tip

   If you don't see the navigation pane on the left side of your screen, choose the menu icon () in the upper-left corner of the page.

3. From the Actions menu, choose Copy.

4. In the resulting Make Copy of cluster snapshot page, complete the Settings section.

   1. Destination Region — Optional. To copy the cluster snapshot to a different AWS Region, choose that AWS Region for Destination Region.

   2. New snapshot identifier — Enter a name for the new snapshot.

      Target snapshot naming constraints:

      • Cannot be the name of an existing snapshot.

      • Length is [1—63] letters, numbers, or hyphens.

      • First character must be a letter.

      • Cannot end with a hyphen or contain two consecutive hyphens.

      • Must be unique for all clusters across Amazon RDS, Neptune, and Amazon DocumentDB per AWS account, per Region.

   3. Copy tags — To copy any tags you have on your source snapshot to your snapshot copy, choose Copy tags.

5. Complete the Encryption-at-rest section.

   1. Encryption at rest — If your snapshot is not encrypted, these options are not available to you because you cannot create an encrypted copy from an unencrypted snapshot. If your snapshot is encrypted, you can change the AWS KMS key used during encryption at rest.

      For more information about encrypting snapshot copies, see Copy cluster snapshot encryption.

      For more information about encryption at rest, see Encrypting Amazon DocumentDB data at rest.

   2. AWS KMS Key — From the drop-down list, choose one of the following:

      • (default) aws/rds — The account number and AWS KMS key ID are listed following this option.

      • <some-key-name> — If you created a key, it is listed and available for you to choose.

      • Enter a key ARN — In the ARN box, enter the Amazon Resource Name (ARN) for your AWS KMS key. The format of the ARN is arn:aws:kms:<region>:<accountID>:key/<key-id> .

6. To make a copy of the selected snapshot, choose Copy snapshot. Alternatively, you can choose Cancel to not make a copy of the snapshot.

Using the AWS CLI

To make a copy of an unencrypted cluster snapshot using the AWS CLI, use the copy-db-cluster-snapshot operation with the following parameters. If you are copying the snapshot to another AWS Region, run the command in the AWS Region to which the snapshot will be copied.

• --source-db-cluster-snapshot-identifier — Required. The identifier of the cluster snapshot to make a copy of. The cluster snapshot must exist and be in the available state. If you are copying the snapshot to another AWS Region or if you are copying a shared cluster snapshot, this identifier must be in the ARN format of the source cluster snapshot. This parameter is not case sensitive.

• --target-db-cluster-snapshot-identifier — Required. The identifier of the new cluster snapshot to create from the source cluster snapshot. This parameter is not case sensitive.

  Target snapshot naming constraints:

  • Cannot be the name of an existing snapshot.

  • Length is [1—63] letters, numbers, or hyphens.

  • First character must be a letter.

  • Cannot end with a hyphen or contain two consecutive hyphens.

  • Must be unique for all clusters across Amazon RDS, Neptune, and Amazon DocumentDB per AWS account, per Region.

• --source-region — If you are copying the snapshot to another AWS Region, specify the AWS Region that the encrypted cluster snapshot will be copied from.

  If you're copying the snapshot to another AWS Region and you don't specify --source-region, you must specify the pre-signed-url option instead. The pre-signed-url value must be a URL that contains a Signature Version 4 signed request for the CopyDBClusterSnapshot action to be called in the source AWS Region where the cluster snapshot is copied from. To learn more about the pre-signed-url, see CopyDBClusterSnapshot.

• --kms-key-id — The KMS key identifier for the key to use to encrypt the copy of the cluster snapshot.

  If you are copying an encrypted cluster snapshot to another AWS Region, this parameter is required. You must specify a KMS key for the destination AWS Region.

  If you are copying an encrypted cluster snapshot in the same AWS Region, the AWS KMS key parameter is optional. The copy of the cluster snapshot is encrypted with the same AWS KMS key as the source cluster snapshot. If you want to specify a new AWS KMS encryption key to use to encrypt the copy, you can do so using this parameter.

• --copy-tags — Optional. The tags and values to be copied over.

To cancel a copy operation once it's in progress, you can delete the target cluster snapshot identified by --target-db-cluster-snapshot-identifier or TargetDBClusterSnapshotIdentifier while that cluster snapshot is in copying status.

Example 1: Copy an unencrypted snapshot to the same Region

The following AWS CLI example creates a copy of sample-cluster-snapshot named sample-cluster-snapshot-copy in the same AWS Region as the source snapshot. When the copy is made, all tags on the original snapshot are copied to the snapshot copy.

For Linux, macOS, or Unix:

aws docdb copy-db-cluster-snapshot \
    --source-db-cluster-snapshot-identifier sample-cluster-snapshot \
    --target-db-cluster-snapshot-identifier sample-cluster-snapshot-copy \
    --copy-tags

For Windows:

aws docdb copy-db-cluster-snapshot ^
    --source-db-cluster-snapshot-identifier sample-cluster-snapshot ^
    --target-db-cluster-snapshot-identifier sample-cluster-snapshot-copy ^
    --copy-tags

Output from this operation looks something like the following.

{
    "DBClusterSnapshot": {
        "AvailabilityZones": [
            "us-east-1a",
            "us-east-1b",
            "us-east-1c"
        ],
        "DBClusterSnapshotIdentifier": "sample-cluster-snapshot-copy",
        "DBClusterIdentifier": "sample-cluster",
        "SnapshotCreateTime": "2020-03-27T08:40:24.805Z",
        "Engine": "docdb",
        "Status": "copying",
        "Port": 0,    
        "VpcId": "vpc-abcd0123",
        "ClusterCreateTime": "2020-01-10T22:13:38.261Z",
        "MasterUsername": "master-user",
        "EngineVersion": "4.0.0",
        "SnapshotType": "manual",
        "PercentProgress": 0,
        "StorageEncrypted": true,
        "KmsKeyId": "arn:aws:kms:us-east-1:111122223333:key/sample-key-id",
        "DBClusterSnapshotArn": "arn:aws:rds:us-east-1:111122223333:cluster-snapshot:sample-cluster-snapshot-copy",
        "SourceDBClusterSnapshotArn": "arn:aws:rds:us-east-1:111122223333:cluster-snapshot:sample-cluster-snapshot"
    }
}

Example 2: Copy an unencrypted snapshot across AWS Regions

The following AWS CLI example creates a copy of sample-cluster-snapshot, which has the ARN arn:aws:rds:us-east-1:123456789012:cluster-snapshot:sample-cluster-snapshot. This copy is named named sample-cluster-snapshot-copy and is in the AWS Region in which the command is run.

For Linux, macOS, or Unix:

aws docdb copy-db-cluster-snapshot \
    --source-db-cluster-snapshot-identifier arn:aws:rds:us-east-1:123456789012:cluster-snapshot:sample-cluster-snapshot \
    --target-db-cluster-snapshot-identifier sample-cluster-snapshot-copy

For Windows:

aws docdb copy-db-cluster-snapshot ^
    --source-db-cluster-snapshot-identifier arn:aws:rds:us-east-1:123456789012:cluster-snapshot:sample-cluster-snapshot ^
    --target-db-cluster-snapshot-identifier sample-cluster-snapshot-copy

Output from this operation looks something like the following.

{
    "DBClusterSnapshot": {
        "AvailabilityZones": [
            "us-east-1a",
            "us-east-1b",
            "us-east-1c"
        ],
        "DBClusterSnapshotIdentifier": "sample-cluster-snapshot-copy",
        "DBClusterIdentifier": "sample-cluster",
        "SnapshotCreateTime": "2020-04-29T16:45:51.239Z",
        "Engine": "docdb",
        "AllocatedStorage": 0,
        "Status": "copying",
        "Port": 0,
        "VpcId": "vpc-abc0123",
        "ClusterCreateTime": "2020-04-28T16:43:00.294Z",
        "MasterUsername": "master-user",
        "EngineVersion": "4.0.0",
        "LicenseModel": "docdb",
        "SnapshotType": "manual",
        "PercentProgress": 0,
        "StorageEncrypted": false,
        "DBClusterSnapshotArn": "arn:aws:rds:us-east-1:123456789012:cluster-snapshot:sample-cluster-snapshot-copy",
        "SourceDBClusterSnapshotArn": "arn:aws:rds:us-east-1:123456789012:cluster-snapshot:sample-cluster-snapshot",
    }
}

Example 3: Copy an encrypted snapshot across AWS Regions

The following AWS CLI example creates a copy of sample-cluster-snapshot from the us-west-2 Region to the us-east-1 Region. This command is called in the us-east-1 Region.

For Linux, macOS, or Unix:

aws docdb copy-db-cluster-snapshot \
    --source-db-cluster-snapshot-identifier arn:aws:rds:us-west-2:123456789012:cluster-snapshot:sample-cluster-snapshot \
    --target-db-cluster-snapshot-identifier sample-cluster-snapshot-copy \
    --source-region us-west-2 \
    --kms-key-id sample-us-east-1-key

For Windows:

aws docdb copy-db-cluster-snapshot ^
    --source-db-cluster-snapshot-identifier arn:aws:rds:us-west-2:123456789012:cluster-snapshot:sample-cluster-snapshot ^
    --target-db-cluster-snapshot-identifier sample-cluster-snapshot-copy ^
    --source-region us-west-2 ^
    --kms-key-id sample-us-east-1-key

Output from this operation looks something like the following.

{
    "DBClusterSnapshot": {  
        "AvailabilityZones": [],
        "DBClusterSnapshotIdentifier": "sample-cluster-snapshot-copy",
        "DBClusterIdentifier": "sample-cluster",
        "SnapshotCreateTime": "2020-04-29T16:45:53.159Z",
        "Engine": "docdb",
        "AllocatedStorage": 0,
        "Status": "copying",
        "Port": 0,
        "ClusterCreateTime": "2020-04-28T16:43:07.129Z",
        "MasterUsername": "chimera",
        "EngineVersion": "4.0.0",
        "LicenseModel": "docdb",
        "SnapshotType": "manual",
        "PercentProgress": 0,
        "StorageEncrypted": true,
        "KmsKeyId": "arn:aws:kms:us-east-1:123456789012:key/0846496a-d48e-41c4-9353-86d8301d7e35",
        "DBClusterSnapshotArn": "arn:aws:rds:us-east-1:123456789012:cluster-snapshot:sample-cluster-snapshot-copy",
        "SourceDBClusterSnapshotArn": "arn:aws:rds:us-west-2:123456789012:cluster-snapshot:sample-cluster-snapshot",
    }
}

Example 4: Copy an unencrypted shared snapshot across AWS Regions

The following AWS CLI example, account - 123456789012, creates a copy of an unencrypted cluster snapshot sample-cluster-snapshot shared by account - 999999999999 from the us-east-1 Region to the us-west-2 Region. This command is called in the us-west-2 Region. For more information on sharing snapshots, see Sharing a snapshot.

For Linux, macOS, or Unix:

aws docdb copy-db-cluster-snapshot \
--region us-west-2 \
--source-db-cluster-snapshot-identifier arn:aws:rds:us-east-1:999999999999:cluster-snapshot:sample-cluster-snapshot \
--target-db-cluster-snapshot-identifier sample-cluster-snapshot-copy

For Windows:

aws docdb copy-db-cluster-snapshot ^
--region us-west-2 ^
--source-db-cluster-snapshot-identifier arn:aws:rds:us-east-1:999999999999:cluster-snapshot:sample-cluster-snapshot ^
--target-db-cluster-snapshot-identifier sample-cluster-snapshot-copy

Output from this operation looks something like the following.

{
 "DBClusterSnapshots": [
 {
 "AvailabilityZones": [],
 "DBClusterSnapshotIdentifier": "sample-cluster-snapshot-copy",
 "DBClusterIdentifier": "sample-cluster",
 "SnapshotCreateTime": "2025-08-22T11:27:00.497000+00:00",
 "Engine": "docdb",
 "Status": "copying",
 "Port": 0,
 "ClusterCreateTime": "2024-07-02T16:44:50.246000+00:00",
 "MasterUsername": "master-user",
 "EngineVersion": "5.0.0",
 "SnapshotType": "manual",
 "PercentProgress": 0,
 "StorageEncrypted": false,
 "DBClusterSnapshotArn": "arn:aws:rds:us-west-2:123456789012:cluster-snapshot:sample-cluster-snapshot-copy",
 "SourceDBClusterSnapshotArn": "arn:aws:rds:us-east-1:999999999999:cluster-snapshot:sample-cluster-snapshot"
 }
 ]
}

Example 5: Copy an encrypted shared snapshot across AWS Regions

The following AWS CLI example, account - 123456789012 creates a copy of an encrypted cluster snapshot sample-cluster-snapshot shared by account - 999999999999 from the us-east-1 Region to the us-west-2 Region. The target snapshot is encrypted with a customer managed KMS key - arn:aws:kms:us-west-2:123456789012:key/6c1f3264-1797-472b-ba37-03011e682d28. This command is called in the us-west-2 Region. For more information on sharing snapshots, see Sharing a snapshot.

For Linux, macOS, or Unix:

aws docdb copy-db-cluster-snapshot \
--region us-west-2 \
--source-db-cluster-snapshot-identifier arn:aws:rds:us-east-1:999999999999:cluster-snapshot:sample-cluster-snapshot \
--target-db-cluster-snapshot-identifier sample-cluster-snapshot-copy \
--kms-key-id arn:aws:kms:us-west-2:123456789012:key/6c1f3264-1797-472b-ba37-03011e682d28

For Windows:

aws docdb copy-db-cluster-snapshot ^
--region us-west-2 ^
--source-db-cluster-snapshot-identifier arn:aws:rds:us-east-1:999999999999:cluster-snapshot:sample-cluster-snapshot ^
--target-db-cluster-snapshot-identifier sample-cluster-snapshot-copy ^
--kms-key-id arn:aws:kms:us-west-2:123456789012:key/6c1f3264-1797-472b-ba37-03011e682d28

Output from this operation looks something like the following.

{
 "DBClusterSnapshots": [
 {
 "AvailabilityZones": [],
 "DBClusterSnapshotIdentifier": "sample-cluster-snapshot-copy",
 "DBClusterIdentifier": "sample-cluster",
 "SnapshotCreateTime": "2025-08-22T11:27:00.497000+00:00",
 "Engine": "docdb",
 "Status": "copying",
 "Port": 0,
 "ClusterCreateTime": "2024-07-02T16:44:50.246000+00:00",
 "MasterUsername": "master-user",
 "EngineVersion": "5.0.0",
 "SnapshotType": "manual",
 "PercentProgress": 0,
 "StorageEncrypted": true,
 "KmsKeyId": "arn:aws:kms:us-west-2:123456789012:key/6c1f3264-1797-472b-ba37-03011e682d28",
 "DBClusterSnapshotArn": "arn:aws:rds:us-west-2:123456789012:cluster-snapshot:sample-cluster-snapshot-copy",
 "SourceDBClusterSnapshotArn": "arn:aws:rds:us-east-1:999999999999:cluster-snapshot:sample-cluster-snapshot"
 }
 ]
}

Note

For more information about encrypting snapshot copies, see Copy cluster snapshot encryption.

For more information about encryption at rest, see Encrypting Amazon DocumentDB data at rest.