Docker config with write binary files

Questions
1

Hey guys,

Another question, I am currently running a docker image with the yml config for:
${DATA_FOLDER}/.n8n:/home/node/.n8n

Docs say to add this to volumes:
- /local-files:/files

I have added that, but the write binary isn’t seeing it or something.

When I change the $DATA_FOLDER to

  • ${DATA_FOLDER}/.n8n/local-files:/files
    Write binary works fine but I lose all my workflows and credentials, because they are obviously stored there.

Do I need to migrate all of that to the new $DATA_FOLDER structure or is there a way to add local-files folder to my config properly?

Thanks so much!

2

/local-files:/files is just an example. One that you would probably not use directly like that. This example would make the folder /local-files of your host machine available as /files in your n8n docker container. So if you write the file /files/my-text-file.txt in n8n, would it appear on your host as /local-files/my-text-file.txt.

What you would probably mound would be something like ~/n8n-files:/shared. Then you can write files to the folder /shared and they would then show up on your machine in the folder n8n-files in your user folder (so ~/n8n-files or /home/[YOUR USERNAME]/n8n-files.

Btw. if you set your DATA_FOLDER to /home/[YOUR USERNAME]/ then the following would be identical to the above:

  - ${DATA_FOLDER}/n8n-files:/shared

Hope that is helpful!

1 Like
3

Thanks @jan, this made perfect sense. Sorry docker stuff is new to me!

4

Glad to hear that it helped.

Absolutely nothing to be sorry for! It was also new for me at some point, and back then I was always happy if somebody explained the concepts to me.

Have fun!