Backup not found error when restoring expired Supabase database snapshot

Restoring a database snapshot beyond the plan retention window

The goal is to recover a Supabase project database from a daily backup that falls outside the current plan's retention period. On the free tier, automated backups are retained for seven days; paid plans extend this to thirty days. Point-in-time recovery is only available on Pro and higher plans. When a restore is attempted for a backup older than the applicable retention window, the dashboard and CLI return a Backup not found error.

Constraints include the fact that upgrading a plan does not retroactively extend retention for existing backups, and the error can also appear if the backup was manually deleted or the project was paused for an extended period. Restores always create a new project rather than overwriting the original, so connection strings must be updated afterward. Auth users, Storage objects, and Edge Functions are not captured in database backups and must be migrated separately.

Open questions

1. Does the Backup not found response definitively mean the backup data has been purged from Supabase infrastructure, or could it indicate a transient API or metadata issue?
2. If the backup was created under a higher-tier plan and the project was later downgraded, does the original retention window still apply to that specific backup?
3. Are there any programmatic interfaces—such as the Management API or pg_basebackup-compatible endpoints—that can enumerate or retrieve backups not visible in the dashboard?