# What should a ComfyUI backup include — the whole folder, or a frozen requirements.txt?

> Four things, and they behave differently: your workflows, model files that exist nowhere else (LoRAs you trained, files taken down from the hub), your custom nodes, and the Python environment those nodes depend on. ComfyUI's own requirements.txt doesn't list what custom nodes installed later, so it isn't a record of your environment. Public checkpoints can be downloaded again; keeping them trades disk for time.

Canonical page: https://renest.ai/answers/what-to-back-up

<h2 id="four">What are the parts of a ComfyUI setup I'd actually lose?</h2>

<ul>
  <li><strong>Workflows</strong> — in <code>user/</code> (saved workflows live under
  <code>user/default/workflows</code>). Small, and the thing you made.</li>
  <li><strong>Model files</strong> — in <code>models/</code>. Some can be downloaded again;
  some can't: LoRAs you trained, files that were taken down, versions the author
  replaced.</li>
  <li><strong>Custom nodes</strong> — in <code>custom_nodes/</code>. Each one is a repository
  at some commit; "latest" today is not the version your workflow worked with (see
  <a href="/docs/pinned-commits-not-latest">Pinned, not latest</a>).</li>
  <li><strong>The Python environment</strong> — the exact versions of torch and every package
  your nodes pulled in. This is the part that usually breaks a move, and the part a copy of
  the folders doesn't fix.</li>
</ul>

<h2 id="requirements">Isn't a frozen requirements.txt enough?</h2>

<p>ComfyUI's own <code>requirements.txt</code> lists what ComfyUI needs, not what your custom
nodes installed afterwards, so it describes a fresh install, not yours. A
<code>pip freeze</code> of your environment is closer, but it's an install list, and it can
name packages that can't be installed anywhere else — see
<a href="/answers/pip-freeze-is-not-a-backup">why pip freeze isn't a backup</a>.</p>

<h2 id="folder">Can I just copy the whole ComfyUI folder?</h2>

<p>For the same machine, often yes. For another machine, the folders come across but a
virtual environment carries absolute paths and builds made for the machine that created it,
and system libraries some nodes load (<code>libGL.so.1</code> and the like) were never in the
folder. That's why a setup on a network volume can still break on a new pod.</p>

<h2 id="models">Do I have to back up the models too, or can I skip them?</h2>

<p>Back up the ones that exist nowhere else. Public checkpoints can be downloaded again, as
long as they stay up and the same version stays at that link; whether to keep a copy is a
trade between storage and download time. A copy is the only thing that doesn't depend on
someone else's server.</p>

<h2 id="nest">What does Renest keep from a ComfyUI setup?</h2>

<p>A nest is packed from a workflow that already rendered. It keeps the workflow, the model
files that workflow used, each custom node's source pinned to its commit, and the dependency
lock with the exact versions installed — plus a record of the machine it ran on, so a later
restore can say up front when a machine can't run it.</p>

<pre>$ renest pack --dir ./run --workflow workflow-api.json --dry-run
$ renest pack --dir ./run --workflow workflow-api.json --out ./nests --dest hosted</pre>

<p>The dry run prints what would be captured and writes nothing. Model files go in as files,
so a restore doesn't depend on whether a model is still online. A file you have already
stored is stored once, even across several nests — see
<a href="/docs/whole-file-dedup">Whole-file deduplication</a>. Your other saved
workflows aren't packed unless the run used them; export those yourself.</p>

<p>Restoring checks every file against its recorded checksum, reinstalls the locked versions,
then starts ComfyUI and runs the packed workflow once. The nest's format is open, and
<a href="/docs/escape-hatch">restore.sh</a> brings the files and dependencies back
without Renest. More in <a href="/docs/capture">Capture a run</a>.</p>

<h2 id="not">When Renest isn't the answer</h2>

<ul>
  <li><strong>You only need your workflows</strong> — export the JSON, or copy
  <code>user/default/workflows</code>.</li>
  <li><strong>You want models safe through ComfyUI updates on one machine</strong> — keep
  <code>models</code> outside the install and point at it with
  <code>extra_model_paths.yaml</code>.</li>
  <li><strong>You're moving a Windows Portable install to another Windows PC</strong> — copy
  the Portable folder.</li>
</ul>

<p>Related: <a href="/answers/volume-image-snapshot-compared">Volume, image, snapshot or
nest</a> · <a href="/answers/keep-setup-between-sessions">Keep a setup between cloud
sessions</a></p>