How to Back Up Your rekordbox Library (and Survive a Theft)

During Amsterdam Dance Event 2026, which ran from 21 to 25 October, Amsterdam police received dozens of reports of jewellery being snatched at parties. On the Saturday night, during a Franky Rizardo event at the Gashouder, someone sprayed tear gas in what local broadcaster AT5 described as an attempted necklace theft. Fifteen people went to the first-aid post and none needed hospital treatment. Necklaces are not the only valuable thing in a dark, packed room. The small stick in your pocket and the laptop in your backpack are worth far more to you than they are to anyone else, because they hold years of cue points, beatgrids and playlists. Thieves can take the hardware. Without a backup, they also take the work.

This guide covers what a DJ library is made of, how to back it up in rekordbox, Serato and Traktor, and what to do in the first hour after a USB stick or laptop goes missing.

What exactly do you lose when a DJ USB or laptop is stolen?

Two different things live in your library, and most DJs only ever think about one of them. The first is the audio files: your MP3s, WAVs and AIFFs. Those can usually be replaced from your purchase history, a cloud locker or an old hard drive. The second is the database: the analysis, beatgrids, hot cues, memory cues, loops, track colours, ratings, comments, playlists and play history. You built that by hand, and it cannot be bought again.

That second layer is what makes a stolen stick so painful. A USB exported from rekordbox carries its own database. If the computer survives, you re-export in minutes. If the computer is gone too and you never backed it up, every cue point you ever set goes with it. The backup plan below is built around that split: protect the database often, because it changes every week, and protect the music files separately, because they are big and change less.

How do you back up a rekordbox library?

rekordbox has a built-in backup under File > Library > Backup Library. It writes a single ZIP file. According to rekordbox's own FAQ, the backup holds your collection and playlists along with cues, waveforms and beat and tempo information. You can also include the music files, but for a routine backup most DJs leave that out so the ZIP stays small, and they back up the music folder separately. To restore, install rekordbox on the new machine and use File > Library > Restore Library on the ZIP. The same route is the official way to move a library to a new computer.

Run the backup after every serious prep session, not once a year. Then copy the ZIP somewhere that is not the laptop itself: an external drive that stays at home, plus a cloud folder. A backup that sits on the stolen machine is not a backup.

As a second safety net, export your collection via File > Export Collection in xml format. It is not a full restore, but other software can read it, so your playlists and cues stay portable.

rekordbox Device Library Backup: protecting the USB itself

Subscribers on the Professional plan get an extra feature aimed squarely at the lost-stick scenario. Device Library Backup keeps a copy of the library you exported to each USB drive, so you can write that exact state to a fresh drive. The requirements, per rekordbox's support page: version 6.5.3 or later, the Professional plan and Cloud Library Sync switched on, with Dropbox or Google Drive as the cloud service if you want the backups stored online. Know its limits: it does not back up the music files themselves; those come from your computer or cloud on restore. Only the last exported state of each device is kept. And the restore fails if the new stick uses a different file system from the lost one, so buy replacements formatted the same way, a point covered in our guide to preparing a USB for CDJs.

How do you back up Serato DJ and Traktor?

Serato: back up two folders. The _Serato_ folder, inside your Music folder on Mac and Windows, holds the database and crates; every external drive you load music from gets its own. The Serato Library folder (Application Support on Mac, AppData > Local on Windows) holds history, preferences and crate order. Serato keeps automatic database backups, but restoring is manual: on a new computer, copy both folders back into place. If the music now sits in a different location, drag the music folder onto Relocate Lost Files in the Files panel and Serato will relink the tracks.

Traktor: the whole collection is one file, collection.nml, in the Traktor root directory. By default that is Documents > Native Instruments > Traktor followed by the version number. Traktor saves a time-stamped copy of the collection each time you close the program, in the Backup > Collection subfolder. Native Instruments' official restore route is to right-click Track Collection in the browser and choose Import another Collection. Each Traktor update creates a new version-named folder, so back up the folder for the version you actually use.

What is the 3-2-1 backup rule for DJs?

The classic IT rule fits a DJ library perfectly: three copies, on two different kinds of storage, one of them off-site. For a working DJ that usually looks like this:

• Copy one: the live library on your laptop.
• Copy two: a scheduled backup to an external drive that never leaves home, covering the music and the software's library files.
• Copy three: a cloud copy of the library backup, ideally the music too, so a fire or a break-in at home does not take everything.

The gig bag gets its own redundancy. Carry two sticks with identical exports, and keep them in different places: one in a zipped inner pocket, one in the record bag or with your tour manager. Two sticks in the same jacket pocket count as one stick. If you play back-to-back sets, agree beforehand who carries a spare, because a B2B with one stick between two DJs has a single point of failure built in. Label each stick with a name and a phone number so a lost one can find its way back.

Your USB or laptop just got stolen: what now?

If it happens during the night, the set comes first. Ask the booth staff whether the club has a house laptop or a backup stick. Check your phone, too: some DJs carry a small emergency playlist in a cloud locker. Then work through the rest calmly:

• Report it. Tell venue security straight away. They can check lost property and camera footage. File a police report too, since most insurers ask for one.
• Lock the accounts. A stolen laptop is logged into your DJ software, cloud storage, record-store and streaming accounts. Change those passwords and sign the stolen device out remotely where the service allows it.
• Restore on a new machine. Install the software, restore the library backup, point it at the restored music folder and fix missing files. In rekordbox, File > Display All Missing Files shows what needs relinking. Then check the audio driver and buffer size before the next gig; a fresh install often defaults to settings that cause crackles and dropouts.
• No backup? If you still have one exported stick, rekordbox may recover playlists and tracks from it: in the Device tree view, right-click Playlists and choose Import Playlist. Treat it as a rescue route, not a backup.

Conclusion

The thefts at ADE were about gold chains, not USB sticks, and nobody should go out expecting to be robbed. But every DJ will lose a stick sooner or later, through theft, a broken port or a forgotten pocket. The fix takes ten minutes a week: run the library backup after you prep, keep one copy at home and one in the cloud, carry two sticks in two places. Do that, and a stolen bag costs you a bad night and some money. It does not cost you years of prep.