To backup and restore a distrobox container using Podman, use podman commit and podman save/podman load:

Backup:

podman commit <container-name> <backup-image-name>
podman save <backup-image-name> | gzip > backup.tar.gz

Restore:

podman load < backup.tar.gz
distrobox create --image <backup-image-name> --name <new-container-name>

This creates a complete snapshot of your container that can be transferred to another machine or restored later.

Note: distrobox-export is a different command — it exports applications from inside the container to the host, and is not used for creating backups.