"Access is denied" error while restoring into folder with files having read-only attributes

arigi · 25 October 2025 18:43

A typical way to restore files to previous states is
duplicacy restore -r 1234 -overwrite -delete

If here are files and folders with read-only attribute or mode, it will fail with “Access is denied” errors.

While restore permission of file while restoring, it’s funny that

restore → read-only bit restored → subsequent restore failed

by the way, -deleteing read-only files also fails, what’s more, errors from deletion are silently ignored, leaving unwanted files without any warning.

To solve this, I have made a PR

github.com/gilbertchen/duplicacy

Change permission before in-place writing or deletion

gilbertchen:master ← 9-2-1:urw

opened 09:52AM - 25 Oct 25 UTC

9-2-1

+44 -2

Restoring will fail because the file have read-only attribute or read-only permi…ssion. As enabled -overwrite and restore with permission, restoring should overcome this, by set permission to read and write before overwriting. The same applies to deleting extra files. Grant read and write permission before deleting. In addition, it's confusing before as failing to delete extra files will be silently ignored. Now it log a warning if here are any errors.

Which

Try to grant write permission or remove read-only attribute before overwriting or deleting files during restoring
Display warnings when files can’t be deleted by -delete

Hope this helps.