Copy a Sanity dataset (free)

The Sanity CLI has an option to copy a dataset: sanity dataset copy.

But when you run it you might find that Sanity doesn't let you copy, clone, or duplicate datasets unless you're subscribed on an fairly expensive plan.

However you can bypass this limitation and do it on any plan, if you're willing to run a few commands—the trick is to export the dataset and import it again!

First make your sanity.cli.js file:

// sanity.cli.js
import { defineCliConfig } from 'sanity/cli';

export default defineCliConfig({
	api: {
		projectId: '<your-project-id>',
	},
});

Then run these commands in the Terminal...

# Assuming your dataset is called "production" and you
# want to clone it to a new dataset called "development"...
npx -y sanity@latest login
npx -y sanity@latest dataset export production production.tar.gz
npx -y sanity@latest dataset create development
npx -y sanity@latest dataset import production.tar.gz development