Backwild

Introduction (short)
Backwild is used to copy or back-up files to a disk or USB stick. It copies only new or modified files since the last backup, and is therefore quite fast. Previous versions of backup files can be retained or overwritten. A GUI is used to edit the backup specifications. Navigate the file system to include or exclude files or directories at any level. Save these choices in a job file for repeated use. New and modified files are backed-up automatically. Files can be selectively restored using a GUI. Ownership and permissions are also restored, even if the target device uses a Microsoft file system.
 
Backwild demo video (YouTube) (1 minute)
 
Introduction (long)
Backwild is a free open source Linux program for copying or backing-up disk files to another disk location or disk-like device, e.g. a USB stick or removable drive. Any directory may be used as a backup location.

You can select files to be copied using a GUI. You can navigate through the file system and select files or directories to include or exclude at any level in the directory hierarchy. These choices can be saved in a job file to automate recurring backups. If new files appear in an included or excluded directory, they are automatically taken into account. You need to revise the job file only if you change the directories or make new exceptions within those directories.

Backwild copies only new and modified files: files that have not changed since the last backup are bypassed. A typical daily backup of personal files can be done with one mouse click and needs a few seconds, assuming new and updated files are less than a hundred megabytes or so.

By default, a backup copy is overwritten by a newer version of the source file, or deleted if the source file is deleted. Optionally, previous file versions can be retained instead of being lost. You can specify the number of versions to retain, the retention period, or a combination. Retention rules can be specified overall or separately for each selected group of files. You can see the previous file versions in the backup media directories and recover them if needed.

Backups can be verified three ways: full, incremental, and compare. A full verify reads all the backup files and reports any files having read errors. An incremental verify reads only those files that have been newly written by a preceding backup job. This is very fast and provides a high level of security. A compare verify reads all backup files and compares them with their corresponding source files. This is normally not necessary, but provides an effective check that all hardware and software is working correctly.

You can report all files in a backup job, or all files in a backup device or directory. You can search for file names using wildcards. You can report the differences between backup files and their corresponding disk files: files that have been created, deleted, or modified since the backup was made. These reports are available in three levels of detail: a list of all changed files, total file and byte counts per directory, and overall totals.

Backwild provides a tool to compare a file with any older backup version. After a file is selected, all available backup versions of the file are listed and any can be chosen to compare. The comparison tool is a GUI interface to the GNU 'diff' utility, including an easy to read side-by-side list of differences (unchanged, added, deleted, and changed lines of text).

For disaster recovery or file transfer, Backwild has a file restore capability. You can select and restore backup files to their original directories or anywhere else. Owner and permissions are are also restored, even if the backup device uses a Microsoft file system.

Main Window, Job Edit dialog, Choose Files dialog