Can I select more than one file/folders to create a snapshot or backup set and apply policy on it?

Support
1

I just installed Kopia UI on Mac.

I am trying to setup a backup set of files and folders.

Let’s say I have ~/Pictures, ~/Movies, ~/Documents, ~/Dropbox/abc, ~Dropbox/xyz/mnp, ~/dir1/file1.ext1, ~/dir2/file2.ext2 (i.e. a total list of 29 files/folders)

and I want to back them up together and also set a policy with ignore rules and scheduling for them.

How do I do that?

Also the moment I hit create snapshot it starts backing up (I have set my remote S3 compatible repository) and it is taking a lot of time before I can even start backing something up.

I am sure there’s something obvious that I am missing. So what am I doing wrong?

Or am I supposed to create 29 backup sets? What is snapshot? Is it one version of that file/folder backed to my repository at any given time after a backup run? Or is it a backup set?

Or is there an “include file” that I have to create in some config directory somewhere?

I am sorry if I am mixing up things but I am kinda confused. I am coming from borg, restic, backblze personal backup, tarsnap etc so I am trying to thing from that perspective. So I apologise for the confusion.

2

Currently each top-level directory needs to be backed up separately. The notion of include list (virtual snapshot root that encompasses N directories) was mentioned couple times, we will add it in the future. Do you mind filing a GitHub issue for that?

3

I think it is possible to backup select top-level folders but you have to exclude everything in the home folder and then include folders using the files policy. See examples in Git negate syntax not working? - #4 by kopanla

Also the moment I hit create snapshot it starts backing up … before I can even start backing something up

This sentence does not make to sense to me …

4

It starts backing up. It starts creating a snapshot on the repository and in my case that’s a remote repository.

5

It starts backing up. It starts creating a snapshot on the repository and in my case that’s a remote repository.

What did you expect instead?

6

That it will ask for a confirmation. Or that it will let me add other files/folders to the set before proceeding to start the backing up part.

7

that it will let me add other files/folders to the set before proceeding to start the backing up part.

You can. Instead of clicking on the snapshot you just have to click the “policy” button first.

That it will ask for a confirmation.

I think that is common behavior. It is not like you are deleting or overwriting anything (for example when you start a Restic snapshot there is no confirmation either) … But you can always click the “stop” button to stop the snapshot.

8

In a nutshell I guess I was expecting to be able to create a simple “include” and “exclude” set and then start any backup or snapshot creation.

I guess I was not giving coherent responses to your questions.

But this what I wanted/expected based on my previous experiences of using backup apps both GUI and CLI.

you just have to click the “policy” button first

What will it do? Let me add more than 1 file or folder (i.e a list of them)? I couldn’t find that option? And comments above indicate it’s not feasible via GUI yet.

I think that is common behavior.

Maybe. But I’ve not experienced that. Also my comment was in response to my expectation (which was incorrect) that I am gonna get to add more files and folders before I start doing anything. At least for an option.

Also, were you pointing to something like “include entire ~/“ first and then use “policy” to exclude a lot of files and folders in such a way that the final backup will be done of files and folders which have been my “include” list?

9

Ah, I am not really sure how it can work.

I also saw this post Multiple directories where it’s essentially mentioned it just can’t work (maybe by design? i.e. that’s not a use case).

Currently there is not a better way and because of how Kopia identifies snapshots and policies (by their root path) that would be quite hard to do.

I guess I will eagerly watch Kopia and see if in feature there is an easy way to simply tell Kopia:

  • Backup these paths → backup set
  • Ignore these kind of patterns/extensions etc when you encounter in the backup set paths.

That’s it. something like how Borg and Restic does it if I may say so.

I simply couldn’t wrap my head around how to do the “include” by using the exclude syntax (the git ignore thingie). And I guess it’s my inability to grok it.

Or maybe that’s the whole point of Kopia - just set one path when trying to create Snapshot and the ignore file (or the policy folder where I guess there has to be a .kopiaignore file maybe? And maybe some policy file as well somewhere?) will ignore whatever are to be ignored in that path.

I didn’t get much from it. Anyway, maybe I will try again after KopiaUI 1.0 or a bit later.

Thanks for the backup app however.