On a schedule

Back up your Airtable base every week

Each week every table in your base is saved as a CSV and emailed to you.

Runs: On a schedule
Apps: Airtable
AI: Not needed
Access: data.records:read, schema.bases:read

Send this to your assistant

Create a ClickRuntime automation: every Sunday at 2am, export every table in my Airtable Operations base to CSV and email the files to me.

Paste it into your assistant. It tells you what it will send or change before it runs live.

Add to ChatGPT Add to Claude

First time? Adding ClickRuntime to your assistant takes about two minutes.

Why use it

Why teams use this automation

Airtable keeps a history of changes and a short-lived trash, but it is not a backup you control. A bulk edit goes wrong, a script overwrites a column, a collaborator deletes a table, or an account is suspended, and the recovery options depend on your plan and on how soon you notice. A consultant whose client work lives in a base, or a business that runs on its Airtable data, has no copy outside the platform that it can open in a spreadsheet and hand to an accountant or auditor.

Once a week, the automation reads the base's schema, pages through every table's records, builds a CSV for each table and emails them to you. You end up with a dated set of files that exist outside Airtable and open in any spreadsheet program.

It suits agencies, small companies and anyone for whom the base holds real business records.

What you get out of it

You hold a copy Airtable cannot touch
A weekly export in your own inbox is protected from accidents inside the base and from account problems. If the worst happens, you have the data. That independence is the whole point of a backup.
Mistakes can be undone from a known date
If a bulk edit damages a table on Wednesday, Monday's file shows what it looked like. Restoring from a dated copy beats trying to reconstruct it from memory. A dated file makes the recovery plan concrete instead of hopeful, and it saves hours of reconstruction.
Records are readable without Airtable
CSV files open in any spreadsheet. An accountant, a successor or an auditor can inspect your data without needing a seat in your Airtable workspace. That helps when someone outside the team needs the figures.
Compliance and retention are easier
Some contracts and regulations expect you to keep copies of records. A weekly dated archive in your mailbox is a simple way to demonstrate that you do. Auditors usually ask for exactly this kind of dated trail.
Every table is included, not only the one you remember
Because the automation reads the base schema, a table added last month is backed up too, without anyone updating a list of what to export. Nothing slips through because a list was not updated.

How it works

What happens, step by step

Every Sunday at 2 am, the automation reads the list of tables in your Airtable base.
It goes through all the records in each table, however many there are.
Each table is saved as a CSV file.
The CSV files are emailed to you, with the table name and row count in each subject line.

Before it runs live

Connect Airtable

What you get

RunsOn a schedule

Back up your Airtable base every weektoday, 9:00Succeeded

Email · Operations backup: Suppliers (38 rows)id,Name,Contact,Country recA1b2C3,Northwind Supply,orders@northwind.example,UK

Build your own

Need it to work differently?

This template is a starting point. Copy the prompt and change it, or describe a different automation from scratch, with your own conditions, more apps or an AI step. Your assistant writes it, tests it and runs it on ClickRuntime.

Your own rules
Conditions, thresholds, filters and exceptions, written the way you'd explain them to a colleague.
Any number of apps
One automation can read from one app and update several others. Over 248 apps are ready, and anything with an API works too.
AI where it helps
Summaries, classification, extraction and drafts use ClickRuntime's built-in AI, with no extra key.
On a schedule or on each event
Runs as often as every 5 minutes, or the moment an app sends an event, and keeps track of what it already handled.

Changes you can ask for

Run it at a different time, more or less often, or only on weekdays
Add an AI step, for example to summarize, sort or draft a reply
Add another app, for example also send it to Slack
Combine it with other Airtable steps into one automation

Under the hood

The code that runs this automation

This is the Python script that runs each time the automation starts. Your AI assistant writes it for you when you send the prompt, and you allow each step in your assistant. To change how the automation works, describe the change to your assistant and it updates the script for you. For every function it can use, see the script reference.

weekly_base_backup.pyexample

import csv, io, json
from clickruntime import on_trigger, credentials, http, notify

BASE_ID = "appXXXXXXXXXXXXXX"

@on_trigger
def run(event):
    headers = {"Authorization": f"Bearer {credentials.connection('airtable', 'work')}"}
    tables = http.get(f"https://api.airtable.com/v0/meta/bases/{BASE_ID}/tables", headers=headers).json()["tables"]
    counts = {}
    for table in tables:
        rows, params = [], {"pageSize": 100}
        while True:
            page = http.get(f"https://api.airtable.com/v0/{BASE_ID}/{table['id']}", headers=headers, params=params).json()
            rows += [{"id": r["id"], **{k: json.dumps(v) if isinstance(v, (list, dict)) else v
                                        for k, v in r["fields"].items()}} for r in page["records"]]
            if "offset" not in page:
                break
            params["offset"] = page["offset"]
        out = io.StringIO()
        writer = csv.DictWriter(out, fieldnames=["id"] + [f["name"] for f in table["fields"]], extrasaction="ignore")
        writer.writeheader()
        writer.writerows(rows)
        notify.email_me(f"Operations backup: {table['name']} ({len(rows)} rows)", out.getvalue())
        counts[table["name"]] = len(rows)
    return counts

FAQ

Common questions

Does the backup include attachments?

The CSV contains the attachment fields as URLs, not the files themselves. Airtable's attachment links expire after some time, so for important files store copies in your own cloud storage as well. Links to attachments can stop working, so keep originals elsewhere.

Are linked records and formulas preserved?

Linked records appear as the names or IDs of the linked rows, and formula fields as their current values. The structure of the formulas themselves is not part of a CSV. Keep the formula definitions documented separately if you need them.

How large a base can it handle?

It pages through each table in batches, so large tables work, but very big bases can produce attachments too large for email. In that case, ask your AI assistant to save the files to storage and email a link.

What permissions does it need?

data.records:read, schema.bases:read. Nothing else in your accounts is used.

Does it need AI?

No. It runs without AI, so it doesn't use your plan's AI allowance.

How many runs does it use?

One run each time it runs (on a schedule). Checks that find nothing to do and stop right away aren't counted.

Can I change how it works?

Yes. Describe the change to your AI assistant, for example a different schedule, channel or filter. It updates the automation, tests it and tells you what changed.

Hourly or daily