# UI: automatic backup when USB drive is detected

**URL:** <https://kopia.discourse.group/t/ui-automatic-backup-when-usb-drive-is-detected/118>\
**Category:** Feature Requests\
**Created:** [September 15, 2020, 4:33pm UTC](https://kopia.discourse.group/t/ui-automatic-backup-when-usb-drive-is-detected/118 "2020-09-15T16:33:06Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![bbigras](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/kopia.discourse.group/bbigras/32/297_2.png) [@bbigras](https://kopia.discourse.group/u/bbigras)\
**Post date:** [September 15, 2020, 4:33pm UTC](https://kopia.discourse.group/t/ui-automatic-backup-when-usb-drive-is-detected/118/1 "2020-09-15T16:33:06Z")

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I don’t remember if I asked for this elsewhere.

Would it be possible to have an automatic backup when a specific external hard drive is connected?

This would simplify **a lot** having an extra backup since you can tell someone to just plug the drive once per day/week and wait for the “all done” notification.

A notification that the backup wasn’t made in x days/weeks could be useful too.

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**Author:** ![samuelg0rd0n](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/kopia.discourse.group/samuelg0rd0n/32/498_2.png) [@samuelg0rd0n](https://kopia.discourse.group/u/samuelg0rd0n)\
**Post date:** [October 7, 2022, 8:54pm UTC](https://kopia.discourse.group/t/ui-automatic-backup-when-usb-drive-is-detected/118/2 "2022-10-07T20:54:52Z")

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I’m digging this feature too. Or something like Arq has - “Skip if volume is not mounted”.

Backing up external drives must be common. I’m wondering how others are dealing with this in Kopia.

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**Author:** ![stpr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b3f665/32.png) [@stpr](https://kopia.discourse.group/u/stpr)\
**Post date:** [October 8, 2022, 5:07pm UTC](https://kopia.discourse.group/t/ui-automatic-backup-when-usb-drive-is-detected/118/3 "2022-10-08T17:07:20Z")

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Related thread:

> [@Backing up sporadically mounted drives](https://kopia.discourse.group/t/backing-up-sporadically-mounted-drives/776/1):
>
> Hi there, I want to schedule backups of certain drives that I connect/mount haphazardly. For me it would be enough that, whenever they’re found mounted, they’re backed up or otherwise just skipped. They all have different mount points (it is an assortment of zfs/btrfs pools and rclone remotes). From my tests, when the drives are unmounted kopia creates an empty backup, which is lumped together with all other identical empty backups. This is to some extent acceptable, although it enters into th…

I think that is definitely a userful criteria, seems like it is currently under proposal stage.