Backing up files?

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Where can I find the files I want to back up?

 

 

 

Deciding which files to back up, and locating them, is the most difficult step when attempting to perform a backup. Listed below are the most common locations of important files and settings that you may want to back up.

  • Personal files (documents, music, photos and videos)

    These are usually stored in your home folder (/home/your_name). They could be in subfolders such as Desktop, Documents, Pictures, Music and Videos.

    If your backup medium has sufficient space (if it is an external hard disk, for example), consider backing up the entire Home folder. You can find out how much disk space your Home folder takes up by using the Disk Usage Analyzer.

  • Hidden files

    Any file or folder name that starts with a period (.) is hidden by default. To view hidden files, click the View options button in the toolbar, and then choose Show Hidden Files, or press Ctrl+H You can copy these to a backup location like any other file.

  • Personal settings (desktop preferences, themes, and software settings)

    Most applications store their settings in hidden folders inside your Home folder (see above for information on hidden files).

    Most of your application settings will be stored in the hidden folders .config and .local in your Home folder.

  • System-wide settings

    Settings for important parts of the system are not stored in your Home folder. There are a number of locations that they could be stored, but most are stored in the /etc folder. In general, you will not need to back up these files on a home computer. If you are running a server, however, you should back up the files for the services that it is running.

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    What to back up

    Your priority should be to back up your most important files as well as those that are difficult to recreate. For example, ranked from most important to least important:

    Your personal files

    This may include documents, spreadsheets, email, calendar appointments, financial data, family photos, or any other personal files that you would consider irreplaceable.

    Your personal settings

    This includes changes you may have made to colors, backgrounds, screen resolution and mouse settings on your desktop. This also includes application preferences, such as settings for LibreOffice, your music player, and your email program. These are replaceable, but may take a while to recreate.

    System settings

    Most people never change the system settings that are created during installation. If you do customize your system settings for some reason, or if you use your computer as a server, then you may wish to back up these settings.

    Installed software

    The software you use can normally be restored quite quickly after a serious computer problem by reinstalling it.

    In general, you will want to back up files that are irreplaceable and files that require a great time investment to replace without a backup. If things are easy to replace, on the other hand, you may not want to use up disk space by having backups of them.