# Estimate upload size of incremental "snapshot create" and get the list of changed files

**URL:** <https://kopia.discourse.group/t/estimate-upload-size-of-incremental-snapshot-create-and-get-the-list-of-changed-files/1429>\
**Category:** Support\
**Created:** [September 16, 2022, 1:15pm UTC](https://kopia.discourse.group/t/estimate-upload-size-of-incremental-snapshot-create-and-get-the-list-of-changed-files/1429 "2022-09-16T13:15:26Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![mirfatif](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/kopia.discourse.group/mirfatif/32/488_2.png) [@mirfatif](https://kopia.discourse.group/u/mirfatif)\
**Post date:** [September 16, 2022, 1:15pm UTC](https://kopia.discourse.group/t/estimate-upload-size-of-incremental-snapshot-create-and-get-the-list-of-changed-files/1429/1 "2022-09-16T13:15:26Z")

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This is in continuation to

- [https://kopia.discourse.group/t/perform-dry-run-storage-estimation](https://kopia.discourse.group/t/perform-dry-run-storage-estimation)  
and
- kopia.discourse.group/t/second-snapshot-estimated-at-same-size-as-first

Is there a way to estimate the upload size of `snapshot create`, for the first run and the incremental runs, with or without taking into account the compression?

`snapshot estimate` shows the same size for the incremental runs as for the first run. Flags like `snapshot estimate --full` and `snapshot estimate --incremental` can be helpful.

Something like `snapshot create --dry-run` which outputs a list of all changed files and their expected upload size. I’m thinking about [`rclone sync --dry-run`](https://github.com/rclone/rclone/issues/3264#issuecomment-664040484). But JSON output format would be better.

Output of `snapshot estimate -q --show-files --max-examples-per-bucket=1000` is not machine processable. And it’s difficult to debug if `.kopiaignore` file works as expected or not. Possible flags to `snapshot estimate --show-files` can be `--show-buckets` and `--show-raw-list`.

To summarize, there are two issues:

- Estimate the size of incremental snapshot.
- Get a plain list of changed files with their expected upload size.

Sorry if I’m missing something. And thanks to the developers for this great tool.

Please let me know if this should be moved to Github issues.

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**Author:** ![jkowalski](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/kopia.discourse.group/jkowalski/32/3_2.png) [@jkowalski](https://kopia.discourse.group/u/jkowalski)\
**Post date:** [September 26, 2022, 4:10am UTC](https://kopia.discourse.group/t/estimate-upload-size-of-incremental-snapshot-create-and-get-the-list-of-changed-files/1429/3 "2022-09-26T04:10:38Z")

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It’s not supported today, Shikhar had an idea for implementing null write mode, where kopia never writes anything (but we’d pretend it does), which might address your use case, right now it’s not supported.

Estimate is currently meant for a rough first-time backup estimate.