Ok that seems a bit too tricky. I was just wondering if the "admin free" aspect of sqlite extended to backups :-) I'll simply follow the way I usually do with other dbms, which is to dump the db before starting the backup. So I guess it should be sufficent to add: ``` rm -f mydb.sqlite3.backup sqlite3 mydb.sqlite3 "VACUUM INTO 'mydb.sqlite3.backup'" ``` to the backup script. Thanks for your answers.