Cannot include .duplicacy directory into the backup

Support
#1

Duplicacy 2.7.2 (175ADB)

This is a Windows Machine
I am dealing with filters, my filter file is like this:
PS C:.duplicacy> type .\driveC.filter

+*.conf
+.duplicacy
+.duplicacy/
+.duplicacy/*
+.teste/
+.teste/*
+inetpub/
+inetpub/*
+Users/
-Users/*AppData*
+Users/*
-*

I have made a .teste directory and it works, had same permissions as .duplicacy, but the .duplicacy directory does not even show in the duplicacy backup command

Example:

PS C:\> duplicacy -d -log backup -enum-only | select-string 'duplicacy','teste'

2022-05-07 11:18:50.992 DEBUG PASSWORD_ENV_VAR Reading the environment variable DUPLICACY_WINDOWS-SO_SSH_KEY_FILE
2022-05-07 11:18:50.992 DEBUG PASSWORD_ENV_VAR Reading the environment variable DUPLICACY_WINDOWS_SO_SSH_KEY_FILE
2022-05-07 11:18:51.134 DEBUG PASSWORD_ENV_VAR Reading the environment variable DUPLICACY_WINDOWS-SO_SSH_KEY_FILE
2022-05-07 11:18:51.134 DEBUG PASSWORD_ENV_VAR Reading the environment variable DUPLICACY_WINDOWS_SO_SSH_KEY_FILE
2022-05-07 11:18:51.488 DEBUG PASSWORD_ENV_VAR Reading the environment variable DUPLICACY_WINDOWS-SO_SSH_KEY_FILE
2022-05-07 11:18:51.490 DEBUG PASSWORD_ENV_VAR Reading the environment variable DUPLICACY_WINDOWS_SO_SSH_KEY_FILE
2022-05-07 11:18:51.493 DEBUG PASSWORD_ENV_VAR Reading the environment variable DUPLICACY_WINDOWS-SO_PASSWORD
2022-05-07 11:18:51.494 DEBUG PASSWORD_ENV_VAR Reading the environment variable DUPLICACY_WINDOWS_SO_PASSWORD
2022-05-07 11:18:51.561 DEBUG PASSWORD_ENV_VAR Reading the environment variable DUPLICACY_WINDOWS-SO_PASSWORD
2022-05-07 11:18:51.561 DEBUG PASSWORD_ENV_VAR Reading the environment variable DUPLICACY_WINDOWS_SO_PASSWORD
2022-05-07 11:18:54.598 INFO SNAPSHOT_FILTER Parsing filter file C:\.duplicacy\driveC.filter
2022-05-07 11:18:54.599 TRACE SNAPSHOT_PATTERN Pattern: +.duplicacy
2022-05-07 11:18:54.599 TRACE SNAPSHOT_PATTERN Pattern: +.duplicacy/
2022-05-07 11:18:54.599 TRACE SNAPSHOT_PATTERN Pattern: +.duplicacy/*
2022-05-07 11:18:54.599 TRACE SNAPSHOT_PATTERN Pattern: +.teste/
2022-05-07 11:18:54.599 TRACE SNAPSHOT_PATTERN Pattern: +.teste/*
2022-05-07 11:18:54.599 DEBUG PATTERN_INCLUDE .teste/ is included by pattern +.teste/
2022-05-07 11:18:54.599 DEBUG LIST_ENTRIES Listing .teste/
2022-05-07 11:18:54.605 DEBUG PATTERN_INCLUDE .teste/teste1.log is included by pattern +.teste/*
2022-05-07 11:18:54.605 DEBUG PATTERN_INCLUDE .teste/teste2.log is included by pattern +.teste/*
2022-05-07 11:18:54.692 DEBUG PATTERN_INCLUDE Users/Administrator/Documents/duplicacy-c__/ is included by pattern +Users/*
2022-05-07 11:18:54.692 DEBUG LIST_ENTRIES Listing Users/Administrator/Documents/duplicacy-c__/
2022-05-07 11:18:54.692 DEBUG PATTERN_INCLUDE ```
Is this misconfig of my part ?
#2

.duplicacy cannot be included — there would not be a point to. It is implicitly excluded.

Why would you want to include it?

#3

I definitely do want to include it, especially for the comprehensive “filter” files I use, as well as the “preferences” file.

#4

It’s not possible to backup that folder, it’s explicitly excluded.

  1. For filters file, you can either replace it with a symlink to a file located elsewhere, or add a reference to an external file with @ prefix.
  2. Preferences files does not need to be backed up. If you need to restore on a new machine you would initialize a new repository there.
#5

Thanks for the suggestions.
The difficulties with these methods (or others, like using Rclone) is that they require additional, non-standard configurations.

In the case of recovering a system after total data loss, you need to make those exact same changes again to get the filters working correctly after restoring all the data. By that time it’s likely been a while since setting it up. Installing the Duplicacy web to restore the data is fairly straightforward, but you’d need to document how and why additional changes were made and what needs to be done when restoring to get it working properly again, all of which adds hassle and room for error.

I understand there may be good reasons for excluding the .duplicacy folder by default (because of the cache files perhaps?), but it would be good if the important files from the .duplicacy folder could be included in the restore so that once you’ve put the data back in its place everything just works again - No symlinks or Rclone setups needed.

For now, I think I’ll go with this method of storing my filter files (since it matches my setup exactly), and add a readme.txt somewhere with instructions to create the simple filter file in the .duplicacy folder, with the two lines of @imports.

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