Migrate from Standard edition to Enterprise edition

To migrate data from a Firestore Standard edition database to a Firestore Enterprise edition database, we recommend using one of the following options:

  • The import and export features. The data files from an import operation are compatible with both Enterprise edition and Standard edition.

  • The firestore-to-firestore Dataflow template. The Dataflow service lets you build data pipelines and the firestore-to-firestore template creates a batch pipeline between Firestore databases.

Import and export is the simpler option to run with less configuration options.

The Dataflow template is more customizable. You can extend the template code to perform partial migrations or transform data. You can also control worker counts and size.

Both options support migrations across projects and regions.

Migrate data with export and import

To migrate data with export and import operations, see Export and import data. To move data to a database in another project, see Move data between projects.

Migrate data with the Dataflow template

Use the following instructions to migrate data with the firestore-to-firestore Dataflow template.

Before you begin

  1. Before you start the data migration, make sure that point-in-time recovery (PITR) is enabled on the source database. The Dataflow job uses PITR to read data at a PITR timestamp. If PITR is disabled, the job fails if it runs longer than one hour.

  2. Assign the required roles described in the next section.

Required roles

To migrate data from one database to another, assign the following roles. You might also be able to get the required permissions through custom roles or other predefined roles:

  1. To get the permissions that you need to create a new database and access Firestore data, ask your administrator to grant you the Cloud Datastore Owner (roles/datastore.owner) Identity and Access Management (IAM) role on your project.

  2. To give the Dataflow job read and write access to your Firestore databases, assign the Dataflow worker service account (for example, PROJECT_NUMBER-compute@developer.gserviceaccount.com) the Cloud Datastore User (roles/datastore.user) IAM role on your project.

    For more information about Dataflow security, see Dataflow security and permissions.

For more information about granting IAM roles, see Manage access to projects, folders, and organizations.

1. Create a new Firestore Enterprise edition database

To migrate data from a Standard edition database to an Enterprise edition database, you must first create the Enterprise edition destination database. See Create a database.

2. Run the Dataflow firestore-to-firestore template

Configure and run your Dataflow job with the firestore-to-firestore template. The templates supports migrating the entire database or only specified collection groups.

Limitations

Consider the following limitations for the firestore-to-firestore Dataflow template:

  • The source database must be a Standard edition database.
  • The migration reads data at a specific read-time. We suggest enabling point-in-time recovery (PITR) in the source database. If PITR is not enabled, data expires after one hour and that might not be enough time for the data migration to complete. PITR extends data retention to seven days.
  • Indexes are not migrated.

  • The Dataflow job doesn't migrate database configurations like time to live (TTL) policies, backups, PITR, and customer-managed encryption keys (CMEK).

    You must configure these settings on the new database. To improve the speed of the data migration, wait until after the migration to configure TTL, backups, and PITR on the destination database.

The following examples demonstrate how to run the template using the Google Cloud CLI.

Migrate all data

To migrate all data, use the following command:

gcloud dataflow flex-template run "JOB_NAME" \
  --project "PROJECT" \
  --template-file-gcs-location gs://dataflow-templates-REGION_NAME/VERSION/flex/Cloud_Firestore_to_Firestore \
  --region REGION_NAME \
  --parameters "sourceProjectId=SOURCE_PROJECT_ID" \
  --parameters "sourceDatabaseId=SOURCE_DATABASE_ID" \
  --parameters "destinationProjectId=DESTINATION_PROJECT_ID" \
  --parameters "destinationDatabaseId=DESTINATION_DATABASE_ID" \
  --parameters "readTime=READ_TIME"

Replace the following:

  • JOB_NAME: a name for the job.
  • PROJECT: the ID of your Google Cloud project.
  • REGION_NAME: the Google Cloud location where you want to run the Dataflow job. Use a location that is near your databases.

  • VERSION: the version of the template that you want to use. You can use the following values:

  • SOURCE_PROJECT_ID: the ID of the source Google Cloud project that contains the Firestore Standard edition database.

  • SOURCE_DATABASE_ID: the ID of the source Firestore database.

  • DESTINATION_PROJECT_ID: the ID of the destination Google Cloud project for the new Firestore database.

  • DESTINATION_DATABASE_ID: the ID of the destination Firestore database.

  • READ_TIME: the timestamp to read data from the source database. Set to a timestamp in the RFC 3339 format, at minute granularity such as 2026-05-15T16:31:00.00Z.

    The earliest valid timestamp depends on your point-in-time recovery (PITR) settings. See Get earliest version time.

Migrate specified collection groups

To migrate only certain collection groups, use the following command:

gcloud dataflow jobs run "JOB_NAME" \
  --project "PROJECT" \
  --gcs-location gs://dataflow-templates-REGION_NAME/VERSION/Cloud_Firestore_to_Firestore \
  --region REGION_NAME \
  --parameters "sourceProjectId=SOURCE_PROJECT_ID" \
  --parameters "sourceDatabaseId=SOURCE_DATABASE_ID" \
  --parameters "collectionGroupIds=COLLECTION_GROUP_IDS" \
  --parameters "destinationProjectId=DESTINATION_PROJECT_ID" \
  --parameters "destinationDatabaseId=DESTINATION_DATABASE_ID" \
  --parameters "readTime=READ_TIME"

Replace the following:

  • JOB_NAME: a name for the job.
  • PROJECT: the ID of your Google Cloud project.
  • REGION_NAME: the Google Cloud location where you want to run the Dataflow job. Use a location that is near your databases.

  • VERSION: the version of the template that you want to use. You can use the following values:

  • SOURCE_PROJECT_ID: the ID of the source Google Cloud project that contains the Firestore Standard edition database.

  • SOURCE_DATABASE_ID: the ID of the source Firestore database.

  • COLLECTION_GROUP_IDS: a comma-separated list of collection group IDs to migrate.

    Sub-collections are not included recursively. For example, if you specify the users collection group, then the migration won't include a messages sub-collection at /users/userid/messages unless you also specify the messages collection group.

  • DESTINATION_PROJECT_ID: the ID of the destination Google Cloud project for the new Firestore database.

  • DESTINATION_DATABASE_ID: the ID of the destination Firestore database.

  • READ_TIME: the timestamp to read data from the source database. Set to a timestamp in the RFC 3339 format, at minute granularity such as 2026-05-15T16:31:00.00Z.

    The earliest valid timestamp depends on your point-in-time recovery (PITR) settings. See Get earliest version time.

3. Configure the database

The firestore-to-firestore job migrates only data. Indexes and other database settings are not migrated. In addition to migrating data, consider configuring the following on the new database:

After configuring your database, you can continue testing your app with the new database. For a complete migration, update your applications to use the new database.

Troubleshooting

For large databases, the job might fail if it reads too much data at once. To address this:

What's next