Data Location

Treeline follows the local-first philosophy. All your financial data stays on your computer in a single directory. No cloud accounts, no subscriptions, no data harvesting.

The Treeline Directory

All Treeline data lives in ~/.treeline/:

~/.treeline/
├── treeline.duckdb       # Main database (your financial data)
├── treeline.duckdb.lock  # Lock file for safe concurrent access
├── settings.json         # App and plugin settings
├── imports/              # Watch folder for CSV imports
├── backups/              # Database backups
├── logs.duckdb           # Troubleshooting logs
├── logs.duckdb.lock      # Lock file for logs database
├── plugins/              # Installed plugins
└── encryption.json       # Encryption metadata (when enabled)

Main Database

Location: ~/.treeline/treeline.duckdb

Your transactions, accounts, and balance snapshots all live in this single DuckDB file. This makes backups simple: copy the file and you have everything.

Lock file: The .duckdb.lock file coordinates access between the desktop app, CLI, and external tools. It uses filesystem advisory locks to prevent corruption from concurrent writes. You can safely delete lock files when Treeline is not running.

WAL files: You may occasionally see a .wal (write-ahead log) file. These are automatically merged into the main database after each write operation and should be short-lived.

Demo mode: When demo mode is enabled (tl demo on), Treeline uses a separate database at ~/.treeline/demo.duckdb. Your real data remains untouched.

Imports Folder

Location: ~/.treeline/imports/

Drop CSV files here for automatic import. Treeline watches this folder and processes new files when the desktop app is running.

After successful import, files are moved to imports/imported/.

imports/
├── chase_transactions.csv     # Waiting to be processed
└── imported/
    └── chase_transactions.csv # Successfully imported

Backups

Location: ~/.treeline/backups/

Treeline creates backups when requested via CLI or before potentially destructive operations.

# Create a backup
tl backup create

# List available backups
tl backup list

# Restore from a backup (use the backup name from `tl backup list`)
tl backup restore treeline-20260115143022-123456.zip

Backup files are ZIP archives named with timestamps: treeline-{timestamp}-{micros}.zip

Recommendation: Periodically copy backups to external storage or a cloud backup service. Backup archives contain the DuckDB database file.

Logs Database

Location: ~/.treeline/logs.duckdb

Treeline maintains structured logs for troubleshooting. These logs stay on your computer and are never sent anywhere automatically. If you need help debugging an issue, you can choose to share relevant log entries, but collection is never automatic.

What gets logged:

Event names (sync started, import completed, etc.)
Integration names (SimpleFIN, Lunch Flow)
Sanitized error messages
Timestamps and durations

What never gets logged:

Transaction descriptions or amounts
Account names or numbers
File paths containing usernames
Any personally identifiable information

View logs for troubleshooting:

# Show recent log entries
tl logs list

# Show only errors
tl logs list --errors

# Show log statistics and database path
tl logs stats

Plugins Directory

Location: ~/.treeline/plugins/

Each installed plugin lives in its own subdirectory:

plugins/
├── budget/
│   ├── manifest.json
│   └── dist/
│       └── index.js
├── goals/
│   ├── manifest.json
│   └── dist/
│       └── index.js
└── subscriptions/
    ├── manifest.json
    └── dist/
        └── index.js

Install plugins with tl plugin install or via Settings > Plugins in the desktop app.

Configuration

Location: ~/.treeline/settings.json

App settings, plugin configurations, and import profiles are stored in settings.json. This file is automatically created when you first configure the app.

Encryption: When database encryption is enabled, encryption metadata is stored in ~/.treeline/encryption.json. The main database file is encrypted at rest. Use tl encrypt and tl decrypt to manage encryption.

Database Maintenance

Compact the database:

tl compact

Removes deleted data and optimizes storage. Safe to run periodically.

Run health checks:

tl doctor

Checks for common issues like orphaned records or corrupted indexes.

Check status:

tl status

Shows account count, transaction count, and date range of your data.

External Access

You can query your Treeline data from notebooks, Python scripts, or any DuckDB-compatible tool.

import duckdb
conn = duckdb.connect('~/.treeline/treeline.duckdb', read_only=True)
df = conn.execute("SELECT * FROM transactions LIMIT 10").df()

See Database Schema for table documentation.