Back In Time

Back In Time is a comfortable and well-configurable graphical frontend for incremental backups using rsync, with a command-line version also available. Modified files are transferred, while unchanged files are linked to the new directory using rsync's hard link feature, saving storage space. Restoring is straightforward via file manager, command line or Back In Time itself.

It is written in Python3 and available for all major GNU/Linux distributions as command line tool backintime and GUI backintime-qt. Backups can be scheduled and stored locally or remotely through SSH.

More background info in CONTRIBUTING and HISTORY.

Maintenance status

The project is in active development since the current team joined in summer 2022, continuing the work of the previous maintainer, Germar. Development is done voluntarily in spare time so things need to be prioritized. Stick with us, we all ♥️ Back In Time. 😁

Current development focuses on stabilizing and modernizing the codebase and fixing bugs. Existing features and the GUI are being simplified and modernized. These efforts are ongoing and affect all areas of the project. See the strategy outline for details. Please see how to support the project or contributing to it.

The team

Since around 2024, @buhtz, part of the projects third generation of maintainers, has been the sole maintainer. He handles all core tasks, from code analysis and documentation to issue resolution and feature implementation. The work is carried out voluntarily during spare time. The project continues to benefit from an active and engaged community that provides advice, expertise, tests and contributions, ensuring it thrives and evolves.

The project was reactivated in 2022 and thanks in large part to Michael Büker (@emtiu) and Jürgen (@aryoda), who helped relaunch and shape its direction. See HISTORY for more details.

Index

• Documentation
• Contact & Social
• Installation
• Known Problems and Workarounds
• Contributing and other ways to support the project
• Licenses

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Documentation

• FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions
• User manual (not totally up-to-date)

Contact & Social

• Mailing list: [email protected] can be used for any topic, question and idea related to Back In Time. Despite its name it is not restricted to development topics only.
• Fediverse on Mastodon: @[email protected]
• Bugs & Feature Requests: Issues section
• Email: [email protected]

Installation

Back In Time is included in many GNU/Linux distributions. Use their repositories to install it. If you want to contribute or using the latest development version of Back In Time please see section Build & Install in CONTRIBUTING.md. Also the dependencies are described there.

Known Problems and Workarounds

• Error InvalidCmd: Parameter 'cmd' contains non-whitelisted with Udev scheduled profiles on Ubuntu
• Files View widget not displaying files or directories
• File permissions handling and therefore possible non-differential backups

More problems described in this FAQ section.

Error InvalidCmd: Parameter 'cmd' contains non-whitelisted with Udev scheduled profiles on Ubuntu

An Udev schedule backup profile can fail on Ubuntu-based distros with an error like this:

This is the beginning of the README. Read the rest at the original. Read the full README ↗