shallow-backup lets you easily create lightweight backups of installed packages, applications, fonts and dotfiles, and automatically push them to a remote Git repository.

• Installation
• Usage
• A Word of Caution
• What can I back up?
• Customization
• Output Structure
• Inspiration
• Want to contribute?

1. Install with pip3

   • $ pip3 install shallow-backup
   • $ shallow-backup

2. Download the shallow-backup binary from Releases tab.

To start the interactive program, simply run $ shallow-backup.

shallow-backup was built with scripting in mind. Every feature that's supported in the interactive program is supported with command line args.

Usage: cli.py [OPTIONS]

  Easily back up installed packages, dotfiles, and more. 
  You can edit which dotfiles are backed up in ~/.shallow-backup.

  Written by Aaron Lichtman (@alichtman).

Options:
  --add <CHOICE TEXT>...  Add path to be backed up.
  -all                    Full back up.
  -configs                Back up app config files.
  -delete_config          Remove config file.
  -destroy_backup         Removes the backup directory and its content.
  -dotfiles               Back up dotfiles.
  -fonts                  Back up installed fonts.
  --new_path TEXT         Input a new back up directory path.
  -old_path               Skip setting new back up directory path prompt.
  -packages               Back up package libraries.
  -reinstall_configs      Reinstall configs.
  -reinstall_dots         Reinstall dotfiles and dotfolders.
  -reinstall_fonts        Reinstall fonts.
  -reinstall_packages     Reinstall packages.
  -reinstall_all          Full reinstallation.
  --remote TEXT           Set remote URL for the git repo.
  --rm TEXT               Remove path from config.
  -show                   Show config file.
  -v                      Display version and author information and exit.
  -h, -help, --help       Show this message and exit.

This backup tool is git-integrated, meaning that you can easily store your backups remotely (on GitHub, for example.) Dotfiles and configuration files may contain sensitive information like API keys and ssh keys, and you don't want to make those public. Public knowledge of specific packages on your system may put you at risk of attack. To make sure no sensitive files are uploaded accidentally, shallow-backup creates a .gitignore file if it can't find one in the directory. It excludes .ssh/ and .pypirc, as well as your package install lists by default. It's safe to remove these restrictions if you're pushing to a remote private repository, or you're only backing up locally. To do this, you should clear the .gitignore file without deleting it.

Tl;dr: If you choose to back up to a public repository, look at every file you're backing up to make sure you want it to be public.

By default, shallow-backup backs these up.

1. dotfiles and dotfolders.

   • .bashrc
   • .bash_profile
   • .gitconfig
   • .pypirc
   • .shallow-backup
   • .ssh/
   • .vim/
   • .zshrc

2. Development Related App Preferences

   • Atom
   • Sublime Text 2/3
   • Terminal.app
   • JetBrains IDEs
   • VS Code (Coming soon!)

3. Installed Packages

   • Atom Packages (apm)
   • brew and cask
   • cargo
   • gem
   • pip
   • npm
   • macports
   • Sublime Text 2/3 Packages
   • ~/Applications/ directory (macOS only)

4. User installed fonts.

If you'd like to modify which files are backed up, you have to edit the ~/.shallow-backup file. There are two recommended ways of doing this.

1. You can open this up in a regular text editor and make your changes.
2. You can use the --add SECTION PATH or --rm PATH args to modify the config file.

NOTE: Dotfile paths should be added relative to the home directory.

backup_dir/
├── configs
│   ├── plist
│   │   └── com.apple.Terminal.plist
│   ├── sublime_2
│   │   └── ...
│   └── sublime_3
│       └── ...
├── dotfiles
│   ├── .bash_profile
│   ├── .bashrc
│   ├── .gitconfig
│   ├── .pypirc
│   ├── .shallow-backup
│   ├── .ssh/
│   │   └── known_hosts
│   ├── .vim/
│   └── .zshrc
├── fonts
│   ├── AllerDisplay.ttf
│   ├── Aller_Bd.ttf
│   ├── Aller_BdIt.ttf
│   ├── Aller_It.ttf
│   ├── ...
│   ├── Ubuntu Mono derivative Powerline Bold Italic.ttf
│   ├── Ubuntu Mono derivative Powerline Bold.ttf
│   ├── Ubuntu Mono derivative Powerline Italic.ttf
│   └── Ubuntu Mono derivative Powerline.ttf
└── packages
    ├── apm_list.txt
    ├── brew-cask_list.txt
    ├── brew_list.txt
    ├── cargo_list.txt
    ├── gem_list.txt
    ├── installed_apps_list.txt
    ├── npm_list.txt
    ├── macports_list.txt
    ├── pip_list.txt
    └── sublime3_list.txt

I back up system images of my MacBook Pro to an external SSD multiple times every week, and it always takes way too long. I wanted to speed this up, so I took a look at what was actually being backed up. I saw that my brew, npm, and pip libraries took up a ton more space than I imagined.

And that's totally unnecessary. When you back something up, you do it with the intention of being able to get back to that exact state at some point in the future. The minimum you need in order to recreate those package libraries later is just a list of the packages that are installed with each package manager. If you have these lists, restoring your system package installs is easy: $ pip install -r pip_list.txt, for example.

I cut down my backup size by almost 10GB by replacing my pip, brew, brew cask and npm libraries with simple text files. I also cut down the back up time significantly since many fewer files were being copied.

Once I'd built that functionality, I wanted to have a single backup utility for files and folders often used by developers, so I added the ability to backup dotfiles and fonts. (Note: Because just having a list of installed fonts or a list of dotfiles that exist isn't very useful, shallow-backup creates copies of all dotfiles and user installed fonts.)

Check out CONTRIBUTING.md