Level 75
how can I avoid losing the existing data?
No matter what you do, Backup first.
Mar 27, 2026
3
Level 1
Database migration
I already have a database with data. Do I need to create migrations for it in Laravel, and if so, how can I avoid losing the existing data?
Level 30
I would use this package: https://github.com/kitloong/laravel-migrations-generator
No matter what you do, Backup first.
+1000000
Level 73
After making the obvious backup, you can try running
php artisan schema:dump
It should create a sql dump of you current schema. Then any changes to the database after that can be done with regular migrations.
https://laravel.com/docs/13.x/migrations#squashing-migrations
Please or to participate in this conversation.