The Day I Lost All My Automations (And What It Taught Me About Backups)

It finally happened.
One day I woke up, logged into my self-hosted n8n, and found… nothing.
Every automation, every workflow I’d carefully built, gone.

For a few seconds, I just stared at the empty dashboard. Then came that deep silence where your brain refuses to process what it’s seeing. I had backups, or at least I thought I did. But not the kind that saves you when things really go wrong.

That day reminded me of something simple: a system without discipline will fail, no matter how good you think you are.

How I Lost Everything

I had my n8n instance running through Docker Compose. It was smooth, stable, reliable, until it wasn’t.
While updating configurations, I overlooked a small detail in my container volumes. That one mistake wiped out my workflows when I redeployed.

There was no corruption, no hacking, no glitch. Just human error, mine.

It wasn’t the first time something went wrong in my tech life, but this one hit harder because automation is my craft. Losing my workflows meant losing hours of thought, testing, and logic I’d refined over months.

The Rebuild

After a few deep breaths (and maybe a few strong words), I decided not to waste energy complaining. I rebuilt it all from scratch.
This time, I built smarter:

• I created automated backup workflows that export every automation I make.

• I stored backups in multiple locations, local and cloud.

• I documented my environment setup so I could recover fast if something broke again.

Now, when I create a new automation, I don’t rely on hope, I rely on process.

The Lesson

Automation is about reliability. If I can’t rely on my own setup, how can I expect my clients to?
This experience reminded me that automation is only as good as the structure behind it.
Backups are not optional. They’re part of the discipline that keeps everything running, even when you fail.

It’s not the fall that defines you. It’s how fast you stand up, learn, and rebuild better.

Closing

Losing all my automations was painful, but it made me stronger as an engineer and as a professional.
Now, every system I touch carries that memory: the cost of overconfidence and the power of preparation.

If you’re building automations, remember this:
Always back up your work.
Your future self will thank you.