Setting up Duplicacy Web on Mac

Hello everyone,

I’m a pretty new user to Dupicacy, and have taken quite a bit of time to research and figure out how to optimize it for my personal backup needs. I did look at the guide on the website on how to properly set up the Web edition, and believe I have done so correctly. My only concern is whether I’m backing up the correct directory on my computer. My ultimate aim is to backup my functioning day-to-day system drive.

For those who are familiar with the Mac directory structure, I created a backup for the “Volumes/Macintosh HD” folder, and then in the include/exclude options, excluded the “Volumes” folder itself. The Mac system has the system drive listed under “Volumes” folder, which contains the “Macintosh HD” folder, which contains the “Volumes” folder and so on, and so on. If I don’t manually exclude the “Volumes” folder, I find that Duplicacy will start backing up any external drive that is plugged into my computer, since, by definition, it IS part of the directory that I assigned to be backed up.

I’m wondering whether I am missing any vital steps here. As I understand it, one doesn’t really have to go through the include/exclude options unless there’s something specific that the user wants to happen. By default, does Duplicacy automatically back up ALL data in a folder, including hidden information and metadata? My concern is whether I’m backing up the wrong folder, but since technically my hard drive IS part of the “Volumes” folder, I should in theory be capturing the information I want to save.

Also, let’s say my hard drive does indeed fail, what would be a practical method of actually restoring this information from my Google Drive account? Would it make sense to download the Duplicacy folder which includes all the chunks, and then unencrypt it offline? Or, is it more practical to set up a reliable ethernet connection and allow Duplicacy MUCH time to download and unencrypt all the information?

Thank you for your time! This is all still new to me, so apologies if I’m asking some obvious questions. Have a nice day.

There is no point in backing up system files as they reside on a read only filesystem and you won’t be able to restore them (not to mention secure boot and sip). It’s would be faster to reinstall anyway. What you want to backup is your user data only (minus transient and cache files, etc).

Consider creating repository at /Users. Or if you are the only user — at the root of your home folder. And then exclude a bunch or stuff — like ~/Library/Caches, browser caches, downloads and music folders, stuff like that. Most of data from under photo library except Originals. Etc.

You can search, there are a few people posted their sample filters files.

Personally I went the other way — exclude everything. And then add back stuff I want/need specifically.

Answering your question: when device fails you restore from Time Machine. That’s the most straightforward and supported way to get your Mac back to where it was. This also works for migration.

If your time machine also fails (aka house fire) you setup your new Mac, then initialize the same Duplicacy repo on a new Mac and restore your user files on top.