Need to be able to select only specific folders in the repository to back up

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#1

I really need to be able to select only specific folders in the repository to backup.

For instance, on Windows:
C:\Users\username
is full of pointless folders.

I only want to backup Desktop, Documents, Music, Pictures and Videos.
(And it seems nuts that I would have to make a separate repository for each of these folders, so please don’t suggest that.)

Also, some of the unwanted folders, like the hidden AppData, have items that cause the backup to stop on errors because another process has locked a portion of the file. That really sucks.

Currently, I have to manually exclude a bunch of useless folders, far more than the ones I actually want to backup.

Please consider adding the capability to select only specific folders to backup! (Actually, this is how the other backup programs I’ve used all work)

Have I missed something? It would seem many users would want this.

#2

You can do that by including those folders as include patterns while specifying an exclude pattern -*/ to exclude all other folders.

For example, if you initialize the repository under c:\Users\username, the filters file can be set up as follows:

+Desktop/*
+Documents/*
+Music/*
+Pictures/*
+Videos/*
-*/
#3

Hmmm… the GUI isn’t clear that this is possble, it only lists “Exclude a directory” and “Include/exclude files”. So I was not aware that I could include directories… but
I do now see that “Patterns ending with ‘/’ are applied to directories only.” in the submenu!

So this backslash “” limits the pattern to the top directory? If not, what does that do vs the forward slash? (Are there further directions elsewhere that I am missing?)

What happens if I leave out the back slash “”? Does the pattern now apply to all of the subdirectories recursively? It does seem that way with -.* That appears to remove the . files everywhere below.

Thank you,
C

#4

Oh, another question. What happens if I change these patterns on an existing backup? Does this work? Does it delete the de-selected folders and files from the storage and add the new folders?

#5

Sorry I made the mistake of using ‘’ rather than ‘/’ (again!). I’ve fixed the previous post to use the forward slash.

Here is the documentation on the include/exclude patterns: Filters/Include exclude patterns

And yes, you can edit the filters file any time. It will affect new backups done after the changes, not existing backups that have already been uploaded to the storage.

#6

gchen, thanks for the clarification.

I want to add… this is rather confusing for us non-experts at the command line.
I just found a whole bunch of backup failures as the app was trying to backup hidden directories that were symlinks.

Maybe the idea is that many people want to back up “everything”, even if they do not know it is there.

But for me, I’d really prefer to just back up the directories and files I know exist. Having to manually exclude everything else is a real drag.

I had to to go to the command line (egads!) and discover the /A for the dir command to show all these hidden directories and junctions

Please consider adjusting the GUI interface somehow, so that users select what they want backed up, instead of arbitrarily backing up everything, even the invisible items.

Or maybe at a minimum, pointing out your example above to just back up the intended folders in the web directions.

Thanks again… testing proceeds.
(I’ll not I’m seeing bursts of uploads exceeding 800 Mbps to B2 on my fiber connection using 64 threads, Very cool)

#7

OK, it appears this is what I actually want:

+Desktop/*
+Documents/*
+Music/*
+Pictures/*
+Videos/*
-*

The last pattern above excludes EVERYTHING except the folders explicitly included above, including invisible files and symlinks/junctions. (I removed the final slash in gchen’s example above that was only excluding the excess folders, but retaining all the invisible files and links.)

#8

Just wanted to follow up on this feature request. I just found a buried folder I wanted to backup, but none of the hierarchy above needs to be backed up. Adding just that buried folder to the backup set is possible, but a real drag, as you have to add the entire hierarchy of folders above it. Each folder level has to be included as it’s own line, even though none of the data in those higher level folders is part of the backup. This is explained on the github pages, thank you for that!

But for those of us who need the help of a GUI to easily use Duplicacy, I’d request a graphical folder heirarchy/tree selection feature be added to the GUI, for both backup and restore.

Here is a good example:

825×633 87.3 KB

Thank you for hearing my request!

(Otherwise, so far it has been a great tool, I own 1 license and will likely buy a couple more if my testing continues to go well.)

#9

Most likely I’ll implement this feature for the new web-based GUI. If that takes too long I’ll add this feature to the current version.

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