Snapshots

Sync a Filecoin node in minutes, not weeks.

Validating the Filecoin chain from genesis takes about a month. A snapshot is a pre-validated collection of chain state you import to skip straight to a recent head. Stax serves fresh mainnet snapshots every day.

Browse snapshots Quick start

Snapshot hierarchy

Three depths, one format.

Pick the lightest snapshot that covers your use case. Most operators want lightweight; explorers and indexers want full; researchers reach for archival.

Recommended

Lightweight

Recent state without full history. The right choice for syncing a fresh node fast. Smaller, faster, sufficient for most operators.

End height: Recent head
Messages from: head − 2,000
State from: head − 2,000
Cadence: Daily

Heavy

Full

Recent head with deeper message and state history for explorers, indexers and anything querying older state.

End height: Recent head
Messages from: deep history
State from: deep history
Cadence: On request

Historical

Archival

Sparse checkpoints at fixed epoch intervals all the way back to genesis, for replay and point-in-time state reconstruction.

End height: fixed epochs
Spacing: ~30,000 epochs
Oldest: genesis (epoch 0)
Cadence: rolling

Naming

ChainSafe-compatible, drop-in.

Snapshots follow the same predictable scheme as forest-archive.chainsafe.dev: network, production date, and chain height at the snapshot head, in the standard Forest .forest.car.zst format. Existing tooling works unchanged.

mainnet — the Filecoin network
2026-06-13 — UTC date produced
height_6101426 — chain epoch at head

filename convention

# Snapshot filename (ChainSafe-compatible)forest_snapshot_<network>_<YYYY-MM-DD>_height_<epoch>.forest.car.zstforest_snapshot_<network>_<YYYY-MM-DD>_height_<epoch>.forest.car.zst.sha256 # Latest mainnet daily snapshotforest_snapshot_mainnet_2026-06-13_height_6101426.forest.car.zst # Browse by depthhttps://snapshots.stax-infra.com/mainnet/full/https://snapshots.stax-infra.com/mainnet/lite/https://snapshots.stax-infra.com/mainnet/historical/

Quick start

Download, verify, import.

Three steps from a cold box to a syncing node. Browse the latest dailies under /mainnet/full/ and /mainnet/lite/.

Download the latest snapshot

download (resumable, 5 connections)

# aria2c, parallel + resumablearia2c -x5 \  https://snapshots.stax-infra.com/mainnet/full/forest_snapshot_mainnet_2026-06-13_height_6101426.forest.car.zst # or curl with resumecurl -C - -O \  https://snapshots.stax-infra.com/mainnet/full/forest_snapshot_mainnet_2026-06-13_height_6101426.forest.car.zst

Verify the checksum

verify sha-256

# fetch the checksum file alongside itcurl -O \  https://snapshots.stax-infra.com/mainnet/full/forest_snapshot_mainnet_2026-06-13_height_6101426.forest.car.zst.sha256 # verify — should print: OKsha256sum -c forest_snapshot_mainnet_2026-06-13_height_6101426.forest.car.zst.sha256

Import into Lotus

lotus import

# import + start syncinglotus daemon --import-snapshot forest_snapshot_mainnet_2026-06-13_height_6101426.forest.car.zst # import only, don't start the daemonlotus daemon --halt-after-import \  --import-snapshot forest_snapshot_mainnet_2026-06-13_height_6101426.forest.car.zst

…or into Forest

forest import

# Forest imports the same fileforest --import-snapshot forest_snapshot_mainnet_2026-06-13_height_6101426.forest.car.zst # check sync progressforest-cli sync wait

Watch the sync

After import, the node fetches headers down to your snapshot height, then validates forward to the live head.

lotus sync wait

$ lotus sync waitWorker: 0; Base: 0; Target: 6101426 (diff: 2031)State: header sync; Current Epoch: 6099395; Todo: 2031Validated 0 messages (0 per second)...# check the last synced block timedate -d @$(lotus chain getblock \$ (lotus chain head | sed 1q) | jq .Timestamp)

Create your own

Already running a node? Export a lightweight snapshot in the same shape we serve.

export a lightweight snapshot

# Lotus: lightweight, recent stateroots onlylotus chain export \  --recent-stateroots=2000 \  --skip-old-msgs \  forest_snapshot_mainnet_2026-06-13_height_6101426.forest.car.zst # Forest equivalentforest-cli snapshot export \  --output-path forest_snapshot_mainnet_2026-06-13_height_6101426.forest.car.zst

FAQ

Questions operators ask.

Can't find it here? The team answers directly — no ticket queue.

Ask us anything

Fresh snapshot, verified, today.

Daily mainnet · resumable · sha-256 verified

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