rbackup 0.7.1

rBackup is a fast, cross-platform, and multithreaded command-line utility written in Rust for performing incremental backups of directories. It is inspired by tools like rsync and robocopy, but designed with simplicity, portability, and localization in mind.

Note: rBackup does not require administrator privileges on any platform.

📋 View recent changes (Changelog)

✨ Features

🚀 Incremental backup – copies only new or modified files
⚡ Multithreaded – uses all CPU cores to speed up large backups
🌍 Multilingual support – English and Italian (with auto-detection)
📦 Portable – no installation required, single binary
🧾 Optional logging – write backup reports to a file
📊 Progress bar – display graphical progress bar during copy process
🤫 Quiet mode – suppress all output for silent operation

📦 Installation

🐧 AUR (Arch Linux)

yay -S rbackup

# or

paru -S rbackup

🍺 Homebrew (macOS/Linux)

brew tap umpire274/tap

brew install rbackup

🦀 Crates.io (Rust)

cargo install rbackup

🚀 Usage

rbackup <source> <destination> [OPTIONS]

Note: If rbackup is executed without any subcommand or positional arguments, the program will print the full help message and exit successfully with status code 0. This behavior is intended so invoking the binary with no arguments acts as a safe help display rather than an error.

✅ Basic example

rbackup copy ~/Documents /mnt/backup_drive/Documents

🧩 Options

Common Options (per-command)

These options are available on most commands:

Option	Description
`-q`, `--quiet`	Suppress console output
`-t`, `--timestamp`	Prepend timestamp to messages
`--log <FILE>`	Write output to a log file

Global Options

Option	Description
`-V`, `--version`	Show version
`-h`, `--help`	Show help message

📌 Commands

Below are the top-level commands with the most relevant options and quick usage notes for each. This layout is easier to scan than a dense table when commands have many options.

copy

Description: Perform an incremental backup from a source directory to a destination directory. Only new or modified files are copied.

Usage:

rbackup copy <source> <destination> [OPTIONS]

Important options:

<source> <destination> — required positional arguments
-d, --delta — copy only changed/new items (delta mode); skipped items are hidden by default
-q, --quiet — suppress console output
-t, --timestamp — prepend timestamps to messages
--log <FILE> — write output to a log file
-x, --exclude <PATTERN> — exclude files matching the given glob pattern (repeatable)
--absolute-exclude — match exclude patterns against absolute source paths
--ignore-case — perform case-insensitive matching for exclude patterns
--dry-run — perform a dry-run without copying files
-j, --jobs <N> — number of worker threads to use (overrides automatic choice)
--show-skipped <never|summary|all> — control whether skipped items are printed during the run (default: summary; overrides --delta default)

Example:

rbackup copy C:\source\folder D:\backup\folder --exclude "*.tmp" --dry-run --log dryrun.log

config

Description: Manage the configuration file (view, initialize or edit).

Usage:

rbackup config [OPTIONS]

Important options:

--init — initialize a default configuration file
--print — print the current configuration to stdout
--edit — open the configuration in the user's editor
--upgrade — insert new config options into existing rbackup.conf when missing
--editor <EDITOR> — specify the editor to use (overrides $EDITOR/$VISUAL)

Example:

rbackup config --init

help

Usage:

rbackup help [COMMAND]

Description: Print help for a specific command (e.g. rbackup help copy).

🌍 Language Support

rBackup supports multiple languages with automatic system locale detection. The language is configured via the configuration file (rbackup.conf):

auto (default) — automatically detect system locale (falls back to English if not supported)
en — English
it — Italian

To manage the configuration file:

rbackup config --init     # Create default config

rbackup config --edit     # Edit config with default editor

rbackup config --print    # View current config

🔎 Exclude patterns (`--exclude`)

rbackup copy supports flexible exclude patterns to skip files and directories during a backup. The --exclude <PATTERN> option can be used multiple times to provide multiple glob patterns.

Where patterns are matched

By default, patterns are matched against the path relative to the source directory. Example: with source /home/me/project, pattern build/** matches /home/me/project/build/foo.
Use --absolute-exclude to match the pattern against the absolute path of the source file instead.
The matcher also tests the file basename (the filename only). This means a simple pattern like $RECYCLE.BIN or Thumbs.db will match files whose name equals that string anywhere in the source tree.

Case sensitivity

By default, matching is case-sensitive.
Use --ignore-case to enable case-insensitive matching for exclude patterns.

Examples

Exclude macOS DMG files and Thumbs.db files (case-insensitive):

rbackup copy /source /dest --log backup.log --exclude '*.dmg' --exclude 'Thumbs.db' --ignore-case

Exclude the Windows Recycle Bin directory by basename and hidden files starting with a dot:

rbackup copy /source /dest --exclude '$RECYCLE.BIN' --exclude '.*'

Tip: In zsh/bash wrap patterns that contain $ or other special characters in single quotes: '$RECYCLE.BIN'.

Absolute vs relative matching

Relative match (default): --exclude 'temp/**' will skip anything under source/temp/.
Absolute match: --absolute-exclude with --exclude '/home/me/project/temp/**' will match only that absolute path.

Dry-run and logging

Combine --dry-run with --log to generate a report of what would be copied or skipped — but without changing the destination:

rbackup copy /source /dest --exclude '*.tmp' --dry-run --log dryrun.log

The log file contains both Copied and Skipped entries. Skipped entries include the exclude pattern that caused the skip when applicable, which helps debugging complex exclude sets. Skipped files are also printed to the console unless the --quiet option is used.

Use-cases

Backup only source code files, ignoring build artifacts:

rbackup copy /home/dev/project /backup/project --exclude 'target/**' --exclude '*.o' --exclude '*.class'

Mirror a user's Documents folder but exclude large media files and the Recycle Bin:

rbackup copy ~/Documents /mnt/backup/Documents --exclude '*.mp4' --exclude '$RECYCLE.BIN' --exclude 'Thumbs.db' --ignore-case

Debug why a file is skipped: run a dry-run with logging and inspect the log — each skipped line shows the pattern that caused the skip.

Use cases (CLI & developer)

This section provides concise, copy-pastable examples for common CLI workflows and for managing translations during development.

1) Incremental backup (copy)

Basic backup:

rbackup copy C:\Users\alice\Documents D:\Backups\alice\Documents

Backup with logging, timestamps and quiet off:

rbackup copy C:\source\folder D:\backup\folder --log backup.log --timestamp

Dry-run to debug excludes and generate a report (Windows cmd.exe):

rbackup copy C:\source D:\dest --exclude "*.tmp" --dry-run --log dryrun.log

2) Manage configuration

Initialize a default configuration file:

rbackup config --init

Edit configuration using the default editor (Windows will use Notepad if $EDITOR not set):

rbackup config --edit

3) Developer: translations workflow (translations_tool)

A small helper script is provided at scripts/translations_tool to validate translations and to generate/apply language templates.

Validate all language entries have the same keys (must be run from the repo root):

cd scripts\translations_tool
cargo run -- validate

Generate a template for a new language es and print it (prefill with English values):

cd scripts\translations_tool
cargo run -- template es --fill-en

Apply (insert) a template for es into assets/translations.json, creating a timestamped backup, and do not overwrite if es already exists:

cd scripts\translations_tool
cargo run -- apply es --fill-en

Force overwrite an existing language entry (use with caution):

cd scripts\translations_tool
cargo run -- apply es --fill-en --force

Notes:

The apply command creates a backup file under assets/ named like translations.json.YYYYMMDD_HHMMSS.bak before modifying assets/translations.json.
After applying a template, translate the values in-place with your editor, then run cargo run -- validate to ensure key consistency.

📝 Example

rbackup copy /home/alex/Projects /mnt/usb-backup --log backup.log --timestamp

🧪 Build from source

To compile rBackup yourself:

git clone https://github.com/umpire274/rbackup.git

cd rbackup

cargo build --release

The compiled binary will be available in target/release/.

Platform-specific requirements

Windows: The application icon (assets/rbackup.ico) is automatically embedded during the build via the build.rs script.
macOS/Linux: No additional steps needed; build proceeds with standard Rust toolchain.

Development setup

If you're contributing to the project, ensure you have the required Rust components:

rustup component add rustfmt

rustup component add clippy

Run validation before submitting a PR:

cargo fmt --all -- --check

cargo clippy --all-targets --all-features -- -D warnings

cargo test --all

🧭 Maintainers: Manual Release Trigger

If you need to manually build and publish a new release (or rebuild an existing one),
you can trigger the “Build, Package and Release” workflow directly from GitHub Actions.

🔹 Standard release (safe)

Go to Actions → Build, Package and Release
Click Run workflow
Leave force_replace = false
Confirm → the workflow will only create the release if it does not already exist.

🔹 Force rebuild of an existing release

Open the same workflow in Actions
Click Run workflow
Set force_replace = true
Confirm → the workflow will delete the existing GitHub release and tag, then recreate them with the latest artifacts.

💡 For command-line users: you can also trigger this manually via GitHub CLI:
gh workflow run "Build, Package and Release" -f force_replace=true

This ensures you can safely regenerate signed release packages when needed,
without affecting your normal automated release process.

🔒 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License.

💡 Contributing

Pull requests are welcome! If you’d like to add support for more languages, improve performance, or fix bugs, feel free to fork the repo and contribute.

✨ Features

📦 Installation

🐧 AUR (Arch Linux)

🍺 Homebrew (macOS/Linux)

🦀 Crates.io (Rust)

🚀 Usage

✅ Basic example

🧩 Options

Common Options (per-command)

Global Options

📌 Commands

copy

config

help

🌍 Language Support

🔎 Exclude patterns (--exclude)

Use cases (CLI & developer)

1) Incremental backup (copy)

2) Manage configuration

3) Developer: translations workflow (translations_tool)

📝 Example

🧪 Build from source

Platform-specific requirements

Development setup

🧭 Maintainers: Manual Release Trigger

🔹 Standard release (safe)

🔹 Force rebuild of an existing release

🔒 License

💡 Contributing

🔎 Exclude patterns (`--exclude`)