Backup and Restore your whole system with Time Shift

[@ruulrskybound6713]

The feature to restore the whole system from a different distribution or even Live USB really blew me away. Tried it myself a couple weeks ago (went back to Kubuntu from a Debian installation). Must have application. It reminds me of Android full system backup from Recovery such as TWRP.

[@TheLinuxEXP]

Yeah, it's just so practical and simple !

[@phase1geo]

Love your Storm Trooper picture in the background!

[@TheLinuxEXP]

Thanks, I really find it beautiful:)

[@latinritemass]

Timeshift + BackInTime = Complete and awesome backup solution! I use DeLinuxCo and both come preinstalled.

[@simonlauer9379]

I think your channel is an excellent bridge for those new to Linux as your content is not focused on technical details but rather informs about the incredible things you can do on a Linux machine. As such I think it is also very informative for more experienced users. Subscribed!

[@TheLinuxEXP]

Thanks a lot :) I try to be as concise as possible, and avoid too much technicality, there are already ple ty of channels focused on more advanced things :)

[@furiousfellow1583]

knowing how to use timeshift form the command line has been really valuable for me, since the times I have had to restore I barely manage to get to tty

[@lawrencedoliveiro9104]

The clever thing about rsync is that incremental backups can be made to look just like full backups for restoration purposes. Yet you still get the deduping of files that haven’t changed.

[@8836290]

Yes please, do those example videos you mentioned. I consider myself relatively new on Linux OSs and would love to see how backup works. I use timeshift till now, but thank God, never had to restore from it, yet.

[@luizotavio2116]

I really enjoy this new video format with you showing up. Some eye candy is always welcome!

[@TheLinuxEXP]

Thanks a lot ;)

[@andrewobuchow]

This is definitely one of my fav Linux related channels on KZbin :) great video !

[@TheLinuxEXP]

Thank you very much :)

[@billgross3579]

This is a helpful video worth paying attention to. Timeshift has saved my bacon more than once. I had to learn the hard way.

[@ashutoshmourya4748]

Thank you this video was really necessary to make people aware of such an awesome utility

[@TheLinuxEXP]

You're welcome :)

[@hari9321]

Timeshift is life saver at times. Great software .

[@egoworks5611]

Sir, you're always concise and quick. Thank you for this clear explanation. Thanks to this I understood what I really needed to back up. Thank you.

[@AnzanHoshinRoshi]

Thank you, Nick. Time Shift is great.

[@TheLinuxEXP]

It really is !

[@maflo5971]

This video is so nicely made! it is compelling to listen and actually has the informations i'm looking for.

[@johnbamber7374]

Timeshift does come by default with the Gnome version of Manjaro last I checked at least. As an avid Manjaro user, I appreciate the mention.

[@Leuvierre]

It is installed by default on the XFCE version as well. Most likely KDE version has it too.

[@rickcontreras59]

Thank you so much for showing us how to back up our stuff yay

[@luigitech3169]

If you use BTRFS I raccomend btrbk, it's more advanced but it does a great job

[@thePreacherXX]

I like the new camera angle

[@TheLinuxEXP]

Thank you, I wanted to switch things up a little :)

[@elimgarak3597]

This is crazy because I just bought a 1 TB external HDD for backup today. I am using duplicity now because I didn't see this video when I started the full backup. I might give this a try some other time.

[@pretendawatch]

Love this new style of video!

[@TheLinuxEXP]

Thank you :) I wanted to change things up a bit !

[@lauriekimani]

I actually like breaking my system. Fixing a breakage is how I learn about linux and have fun..

[@MrAwesomeBikerDude]

Take a look at ZFS! Specially Snapshots and Replication, maintenance-free backup system. I think I'm in love and her name is ZFS.

[@IngwiePhoenix_nb]

Time Shift looks very awesome! I am still looking for a good backup solution for my home folder too. I hope you will also review other backup solutions as well :)

[@JahidulIslam]

Deja dup. You can also create a tar.gz archive of dot(.) files and folders.

[@JahidulIslam]

@matthdapps use Time Shift for system backup(root folder)and deja dup for home backup. Actually it is easier to backup home. You can just create a tar archive (tar.gz/tar.xz etc).

[@আমাদেরসংসার-ঙ৮ব]

​@@JahidulIslamdeja dup?

[@JahidulIslam]

@@আমাদেরসংসার-ঙ৮ব it's a backup software

[@আমাদেরসংসার-ঙ৮ব]

@@JahidulIslam okk

[@hooami6245]

that stormtrooper picture tho. sick!

[@JoussefJouda]

Timeshift is a live saver!

[@TheLinuxEXP]

Absolutely !

[@alexandervasilyev4418]

timeshift already helped me to restore system :) Thanks!

[@TheLinuxEXP]

You're welcome :)

[@misterdinosaur9818]

Timeshift + Deja Dup gets me out of trouble after I frequent wreck my distro (my ambition out-ways my ability!)

[@siphiwokobese4398]

Would have lost a massive dev project without Timeshift. Recommended

[@marinlos]

I've used it and it works great

[@HellcatM]

One day I was trying out different launchers on KDE and one of them blacked out my screens, couldn't see anything. I went into another distro that was on a live thumb drive and ran Timeshift, if found my backups, clicked on the latest one, it looked like it was going to work, but when I logged in still had the black screen. I tried another, same thing. I don't know what I did wrong.

[@DimitrisChr]

Timeshift is great. Saved my Arch install a couple of times when updates messed up boot.

[@zxph]

Nice wall art!

[@ziyad7780]

I tried to do it on my flash drive but I couldn't select it due to this error "The external hard drive does not have a linux partition" any idea?

[@yousupreme]

First time I like a sponsor message :D

[@TheLinuxEXP]

Nice :) Safing are great !

[@harrytrueman4216]

Can you review the port master application? It looks interesting but still in Alpha.

[@kendarr]

I used deja dup backup, not knowing it only backuped the home, soooo time to re install

[@Steven_nevetS]

Yeah, Time Shift is very very good!

[@techgeek1162]

All sounds good. I am not talking about virtual box linux systems. Let's say my system get's wacky can't boot. possibly grub or mbr or something. I had taken timeshift snapshot on a separate drive. Now I have to run around for a live install to find who has timeshift included in their liveCD . Why not use clonezilla to backup and restore ?

[@HobbsBhipp]

I'm a linux newbie who made three Timeshift snapshots before I made a couple of distro hop installations. I settled with linux mint 20.1 and after watching numerous vidoes on this , I still can't find my downloads , pics, & videos from my old installation with the snapshots - please can someone help?

[@tuberkkcoolio5059]

PLS HELP Why should i use backintime when timefshift offers the option to backup files "include all files" ? it make sense to exclude them... but why not include ? If i would do a backup daily my files would be save.... or no ?

[@michadybczak4862]

Currently, the only fully working version of Timeshift is 19.01. After that it got broken by its developer, who disabled ability to back up package cache files (installable package files), at least on Arch based systems. So with newer versions, I could browse the backup to find those files and install a package again. This is especially important with git packages, because they are not backed properly in the cache, but overwritten, so when you want an older, better working version, you have to look it on the backup. There are other reasons why someone would want to have access to cache files that are no longer accessible in repo. So Timeshift lost ability to backup completely root and I had to go back to the last good version - 19.01 I submitted a topic discussing this issue but the developer doesn't seem to be interested in it, so I assume Timeshift is still broken and as far I recall, the developer stopped developing the program as it got disappointed he didn't earn much money from it, so he cut the time he spent on it. If I'm wrong and that function was brought back silently, let me know. This left us with awkward and awful place, where there is only one the best backup app - Timeshift, but it's not developed or supported properly, with broken function :(

[@uzefulvideos3440]

I guess that's only happening with rsync? Wouldn't make sense with Btrfs.

[@michadybczak4862]

@@uzefulvideos3440 Yes, rsync. As I understand it, I can't change the method as I have ext4 file system on my external HDD, plus rsync uses less space (incremental backups).

[@uzefulvideos3440]

​@@michadybczak4862 Btrfs system snapshots can share blocks with the source subvolume, which means only unique blocks will consume additional space. Btrfs system snapshots will generally consume less space than Rsync incremental backups. In addition to that Btrfs also supports file system compression. Btw, I've written a guide on how to move a Linux installation from ext4 to Btrfs subvolumes not too long ago: osdn.net/projects/rebornos/wiki/Btrfs+system+snapshots+and+rollbacks+with+Timeshift

[@manen_]

I like the new background

[@TheLinuxEXP]

Thanks :) A bit less busy, but I'll experiment more :)

[@passionatelove7562]

I have dell laptop already has Linux on it I installed windows 10 is there any possibility to get back

[@davidwayne9982]

I LOVE TIMESHIFT--- found out day before yesterday it WILL NOT WORK ON FEDORA... so I got RID of Fedora (for other reasons too-- I just didn't like it).. BUT I use TIMESHIFT on everything I have. It's saved my butt many times so far.

[@DunderHead.5000]

I'm looking for a full system backup on a secondary drive to be updated occasionally so if I have a HDD or SSD fatal crash, I can just pop in the other drive and be up and running again. Will TimeShift do this with custom changes made to OS and custom addresses etc.?

[@theprimordialdude1138]

Yah you are right man its really awesome...

[@creative-commons-videos]

Will it work cross distro ? Like if I have installed mint and then I installed pop os, can I get all data installed on mint on pop os ?

[@vcprocles]

By default no, but you can turn it on during initial setup

[@markosaric9994]

Is it possible to automate the restore? I want to make a single snapshot and have the system restore to it on each boot. Can that be done?

[@CAZOlsen]

just did a restore today on my intel NUC today took all nessesary precautions Did a backup before i started experimenting Save files on my nextcloud instance bascially prepaired everything Off course i something went wrong and i decided to do a restore from snapstore this first time I have tried it Set timeshift to restore at i took some time so i went out When i came back the intel NUC could not start but was on So i had to force turn off the NUC After this it kept me in a loop of initramfs I try to do a fresh install of pop os and then restore again from snapshot Figureing that something went wrong But i lost all backups on the hard drive i have no idea how that happend I even lost the backups on another partition that i dont use with this pc I am very confused as to what Happend / went wrong

[@khandarwilliam5439]

every time i upgrade Mint, the guide always says to create Time Shift snapshot first

[@transmitthis]

"BTRFS -Snapshots are saved to /timeshift ... Other locations not supported" t=208, Yet you say you can store them on an External Drives? What am I being confused by here?

[@David_Quinn1995]

is there a way to get it to back up the files to a NAS or will I have to manually do that?

[@hyperspeed1313]

BTRFS's official name B-Tree File System. For all the variations you used, I'm surprised you didn't use the official name.

[@TheLinuxEXP]

You can join Safing's AMA until the 24th of September 2020 here: www.reddit.com/r/privacytoolsIO/comments/iv6mca/we_are_safing_a_forprivacy_counterculture_company/

[@xscale]

timeshift lets me back up home if I want to ... so why not? I exclude download and any binaries I build, and it's not like a microsd is expensive, and incremental backups don't take much space anyway so ... I think I must be misunderstanding something.

[@আমাদেরসংসার-ঙ৮ব]

Does it backup Virtual machines too?

[@chairman67]

Is it easy (or possible) to restore a Timeshift backup to an operating system installed in an LVM container volume on a LUKS encrypted partition ? Typically on a laptop that has the OS installed with encryption.

[@advaitc2554]

Great video. Thx! Linux newbie here. Just switched from Windows 10 to Fedora. I'm now doing my first backup of my Fedora 34 BTRFS system. I'm using Timeshift Rsync. I'm now backing up all my files (including home direc) to an external hard drive. Does Timeshift Rsync skip open files? Or do all open files also get backed up? Thx!

[@TheLinuxEXP]

Technically they should be backed up as well

[@advaitc2554]

@@TheLinuxEXP Good news. Thanks! My Timeshift Rsync backup just successfully finished to my external BTRFS formatted drive.

[@advaitc2554]

@@TheLinuxEXP Which Fedora compatible backup program creates a 'bootable' backup? I want to make a bootable full image (including home direc) of my main nvme drive to an identical nvme drive in Slot 2. So if my nvme drive in Slot 1 dies, I just boot into Slot 2. (My laptop has 2 easy to access nvme slots.)

[@haji_amzar]

can you make tutorial on installing arch?

[@daniel07l]

Look here: wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Installation_guide If you find it too difficult and still want to use arch, I'd recommend Manjaro or EndeveorOS

[@uzefulvideos3440]

I can also recommend RebornOS and Garuda Linux.

[@haji_amzar]

great video

[@TheLinuxEXP]

Thanks !

[@rockymarquiss8327]

Great tool for Ubuntu distros. I installed it on Suse and you try to restore a snapshot and it whines it can't because it's bit ubuntu

[@satoshiborishi6898]

Very informative

[@motherboardbroken2305]

What do you mean by user config files 1:37 will time-shift not be able restore my extensions and its configs?

[@TheLinuxEXP]

No, it only works on system files, not user files

[@motherboardbroken2305]

@@TheLinuxEXP and like always, i did not get a notification when you replied. Well my system crashed for a reason ig. not exactly a crash but idk can i go in detail?

[@proptart7933]

This is great for system backups! What software do people recommend for backing up user files / documents?

[@TheLinuxEXP]

BackInTime :)

[@proptart7933]

@@TheLinuxEXP Sweet, I'll check that out. Thanks!

[@StephenYT.]

is possible use it via terminal? and how to restore?

[@daivomjoshi56]

Hi i needed your help. If i use timeshift on my KDE NEON distro, and include /home directory, Then will it backup my WHOLE settings data (Incl. themes, fonts, customizations, widgets etc.) as it is ? Also will I be able to get my WHOLE KDE NEON as it is (Same settings and customization) with timeshift snapshot ?

[@kindnessasgreatasthesea1158]

Thanks! So that means that if I backup my Timeshift snapshots on an external disk, I can afterwards install the system snapshot on another disk that has no operating system installed (only has partitions like /, /home, /swap and such) as if I never switched disks?

[@prabinacharya3266]

Yes, it replaces the files of /home / swap everything and brings back the whole system. Even if you format the whole disk

[@Hardbootbu]

if i am to use another distro i would probably use it , but openSuse snapper fill my needs , save me a lot of troubles but i don't think they do exactly the same thing .

[@cbrnix]

Don't you have a problem with the Elementary? Last time I tried to use it, / kept falling

[@TheLinuxEXP]

Not me, everything works fine :)

[@battlebuddy4517]

I fear if it free and it getting advertisements something bad gotta be about them or im over thinking

[@LEO-xo9cz]

Great video. How do I put Timeshift onto a USB?

[@SDWNJ]

For ~/ backups, take a look at cronopete: www.rastersoft.com/programas/cronopete.html

[@namelesske]

Be careful it's just a lazy backup tool, don't trust it on mission critical systems and do proper backups.

[@debeeriz]

it has never let me down yet and i have been using it since mint 17, but i did read when a recent mint 20 iso could not be

[@namelesske]

@@debeeriz The worst thing when a backup is not working. Deja Dup is a must.

[@odnankenobi]

Agreed

[@আমাদেরসংসার-ঙ৮ব]

​@@namelesskewhat is deja dup?

[@perdomot]

What I don't like about Timeshift is that it won't create its backup in an NTFS partition. I have my documents on a separate SSD that uses NTFS and wanted to use that but Timeshift wont work with Windows file systems. Hope they add that soon.

[@TheLinuxEXP]

Linux does not really support NTFs that well, it's not an open filesystem :)

[@perdomot]

@@TheLinuxEXP I've used NTFS Config for years now and never had an issue mounting my NTFS drive so I think they can do it if they want.

[@TheLinuxEXP]

Problem is, NTFS is a windows filesystem, and OS can't differentiate between filenames with lower case and upper case. So if you use that drive in windows, and that OS decides that two files that have the same name should not exist, your backup might be broken. I think it might be the reason why it won't work on NTFS filesystems :)

[@perdomot]

@@TheLinuxEXP Thanks for the info. You might be interested in the Snapshot tool in MX Linux that creates an iso image of your drive that you can burn to a thumb drive. Really handy if you have to reinstall your OS because all you apps and settings get set up when you install.

[@moritzschafer502]

Thanks for the video! I was quite happy when I found timeshift (it came preinstalled with Mint). I need to know where ot get this Storm trooper image, it's amazing!

[@IamSaikatSarkar]

Watching this video siting on Tajmahal .

[@SeanClarke]

I just upgraded my timeshift drive from 500 MB to 1 GB.

[@PinakiGupta82Appu]

Time shift+FreeFileSync+GRSync.

[@J3zu5]

make a video about deja dup.

[@HenrikWittenberg]

I prefer Vorta with Borg Backup over it.

[@rickbhattacharya2334]

But i thought nuking the system and installing it from the start is the fun part of Linux :(

[@TheLinuxEXP]

It's part of the fun, but at some point you also need a way to not lose a whole day :)

[@djadja168]

timeshift on a RAID 1. i just cant lose data :)

[@hermannschaefer4777]

Yes, timeshift is good. But, tbh, once you worked with its original, the Mac timemachine, you will see some not-that-well things. Timemachine eg. backups every hour and does this very fast, thanks to the Mac-included-file-system-changes-log-daemon, the fsevents-daemon (fseventsd). Linux really needs a similar good one, inotify is not good enough - yet.

[@kroninid5570]

Timeshift save my systems many times.

[@TheLinuxEXP]

It's fantastic !

[@spongeybobu]

You should show more of the Timeshift screen and not your face

[@rraghur965]

Borg ftw

[@tomaszgasior772]

GUI design looks Cinnamon like, so this seems to be Linux Mint related project which makes it less valuable for me since I don't want to use tools from non-mainstream distros but that's minor issue. The biggest problem I see is thatTimeshift's GUI runs as root which is very bad practice and shows that app authors don't understand how to properly create apps for Linux in 2020. On Fedora using Timeshift for a few seconds crashed my whole desktop session. Bad experience. Uninstalled after first try. I will stay with Clonezilla, without fancy easy-to-use GUI but based on solid fundaments (Ubuntu, Debian).

[@ziul.3124]

😂👍

[@bungnugget]

This video is misleading. Snapshots are not backups.

[@XTF1]

xfs reflinks ftw

[@tralphstreet]

Nick doesn't show us how to use it because he destroyed his system and found out about Timeshift then.

[@TheLinuxEXP]

Nooooo. Yes. Maybe. I don't want to talk about it.

[@tralphstreet]

@@TheLinuxEXP Called it!

[@TheLinuxEXP]

I had planned to make a video out of it before, and started using it, and then I destroyed my system by playing around with IPV6 😅

[@benzflynn]

All talk and no demo

[@tasvirmahmood3558]

You didn't explain properly how to restore. You absolutely rushed through that part.

[@oscwavcommentaccount]

second comment?

[@oscwavcommentaccount]

also this is going in my watch later playlist

[@আমাদেরসংসার-ঙ৮ব]

So no practical tutorial. Wasted my time here.