Transfer Items
How to transfer content, media and forms between your environments.
Once all code and metadata are in sync between your environments, it's time to transfer your content and media. This is done from the Umbraco Backoffice.
Transfers are flexible, which means you have complete control over which items you want to transfer. You can transfer it all in one go, a few at a time, or transfer only a single item.
Transferring items will overwrite the same item on the target environment if it already exists. A transfer will transfer the items that you select in the "source" environment to the "target" environment exactly the same as it was in the "source".
Content and Media transfers will only work if you've deployed all changes to your metadata beforehand. Please refer to our documentation on how to deploy metadata from either Local to Cloud or between your Cloud environments.
Comparing Content between environments
Compare Content allows previewing content changes before transferring them to another environment. This is helpful to ensure that the correct updates are transferred when working with content in multiple environments.
Summary Information and Field Comparison values shows what will change when you transfer the content or restore content to the current environment.
To compare content between environments, follow these steps:
Navigate to the page you want to compare.
Select the Actions drop-down next to the Page Title field.
Select Compare to open the Compare window.
Choose the workspace from the drop-down field.
View the Summary information.
Use the Field Comparison table to view the differences between the versions of the content item.
Proceed with either of the 3 available options:
Transfer the content using the Queue for transfer.
Do a Partial Restore the content from the next environment in the workflow using the Partial restore option.
Close the window to continue editing the content node.
Transfer Queue
The first step when transferring items from your environment is to add them to the Transfer Queue. You can add items to the Transfer queue from the following sections:
Content from the Content section.
Elements from the Library section.
Media from the Media section.
Forms from the Forms section (additional configuration is required).
Members and Member Groups from the Members section (additional configuration is required).
Choose between two methods when adding items to the Transfer Queue:
Option 1: Add a specific item, specify variants, and include/exclude subitems.
Option 2: Add everything from a specific section (Content, Media, Library, or Forms).
Alternatively, you can also choose to transfer a single content item directly using the Transfer now option.
Add items to the queue
The steps below take you through the options available when choosing Option 1:
Click on the ellipsis node next to the root item in the tree.
For Option 2, click on the ellipses next to the tree title (Content, Media, Elements, or Forms).
Choose Add to Transfer Queue.
Select the culture variants you want to add.
Only languages for which you have permission to access will be selectable.
Choose to either publish the content directly after transferring or set a specific date and time.
Choose whether or not to include any subitems.
Click Submit to add the content to the Transfer Queue.
Transfer queued items
Once you have items in your Transfer Queue, a notification icon is added to the Environment name in the top-right corner. The number is increased depending on how many different items are queued.
Open the Deploy Overview by clicking on the Environment name.
Review the items added to the Transfer Queue.
You will be able to see which items are currently ready to be transferred - this will include both content and media that you've queued for transfer.
Hover an item to get the Remove option, or use the Refresh and Clear queue options found via the arrow at the bottom.
Click Transfer to [Environment name] to transfer the items to the next environment.
The transfer can take a few minutes, depending on the number of items being transferred to the next environment. You can follow the process from the Deploy Overview.
When the transfer is done, close the Deploy Overview and verify that the items are now available on the next environment.
Transfer Directly
You can transfer a specific content node directly to the higher environment without adding it to the Queue for transfer.
To transfer content to the next environment in your workflow, follow these steps:
Navigate to the page you want to transfer.
Select the arrow next to the Save and Publish button.
Select Transfer now.
In the Configure transfer window, a confirmation message is displayed. The message tells you which environment the item will be transferred to.
Choose whether the content should be published directly or set a publication date.
Click Submit to initiate the transfer.
The content item is now available on the next environment.
Transfer Members and Member Groups
To be able to transfer Members and Member groups, make sure that AllowMembersDeploymentOperations is configured to transfer and TransferMemberGroupsAsContent is set to true. This needs to be done in the appSettings.json file
Once the settings have been configured, Members can be transferred as described using steps above.
Transfer Forms
You'll need to ensure the TransferFormsAsContent setting is set to true in the appsettings.json file:
Transfer Dictionary Items
Deploy can be configured to allow for backoffice transfers of dictionary items instead of using files serialized to disk by setting TransferDictionaryAsContent as true.
Schema Mismatches
Sometimes, a content transfer is not possible. For example, adding a new property to the HomePage Document Type that's missing in another Cloud environment throws an error. The error contains details on how to fix it.
If you encounter this issue while transferring content, refer to the Schema Mismatches article. This article provides guidance on resolving these issues.
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