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If you’re not backing up your most important data, you’re inviting trouble into your life.
We’ve all been there — those moments when something goes awry with a computer and you have to sweat through the process of hoping you can get that machine running long enough to copy those crucial files and folders to an external drive, and salvage them before something goes catastrophically wrong. Or maybe you accidentally deleted a folder and have already emptied your trash?
Also: How to set up your own NAS for more reliable data backups
Whatever the future holds, it’s time you start depending on a solid backup strategy — or that you at least start using a backup tool to keep your most important files safe from disaster.
Déjà Dup is a play on déjà vu and serves as the official backup tool for the GNOME desktop. The tool is also provided with a number of other Linux desktops (such as Budgie). Déjà Dup is so easy to use, anyone can set up a backup.
Let me show you just how easy it is.
How to create your first Déjà Dup backup
What you’ll need: The only things you’ll need for this are a running instance of Linux. If Déjà Dup isn’t preinstalled on your desktop, you’ll most likely find it available to install from your app store.
Also: How to store your old smartphones and tablets until you need them
You’ll also need either an external drive attached to your computer to house the backups or have your computer connected to your cloud service of choice. For this, Déjà Dup supports Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive.
Installing Déjà Dup from within GNOME Software. Jack Wallen/ZDNET
That’s it. Now, let’s get to the backup.
If you haven’t already attached an external drive to your desktop (or laptop), do so now. Once the drive is detected, make sure you can access it via your desktop file manager.
The trick for opening Déjà Dup is that it might be named Backupsl in your menu. So, either search for Déjà Dup (you can also spell it deja dup in the menu search) or backups.
Also: How to install Ubuntu Linux (It’s easy!)
In Ubuntu Budgie, it’s listed as Backups. If I search for Déjà Dup in the Ubuntu Budgie menu, it comes up empty. If you don’t find Déjà Dup in your menu, open your desktop app store and install it from there.
When you first open Déjà Dup, you’ll see two buttons: Create Your First Backup, and Restore From a Previous Backup. Click Create Your First Backup.
From this simple window, you can either create a new backup or restore from a previously existing Déjà Dup backup. Jack Wallen/ZDNET
In the resulting popup, click + under Folders to Back Up and, from the picker, select the folder you want to back up. You can add as many folders to the backup as you need. Once you’ve made your choice, click Forward.
One thing to keep in mind is that you might not want to back up your entire home directory (which is included by default).
Also: How to organize your Google Drive: 5 tips to know
The good thing about backing up your entire home directory is that if you had to re-install the operating system, you could restore from that backup and have all of your data and user app configurations back fairly quickly. The only downside is that you’ll need more space on the external drive and the initial backup will take more time.
Selecting the folder(s) to be backed up by Déjà Dup. Jack Wallen/ZDNET
You can select a locally attached drive, a network drive, or a cloud account. Jack Wallen/ZDNET
You can now set an optional password for your backup. This can be important, especially if you’re backing up to a network drive or cloud account that is accessible by other people. When prompted, type and confirm your password and click Forward. If you don’t need to password protect the backup, move the On/Off slider until it’s in the Off position.
To password protect or not to password protect. Jack Wallen/ZDNET
At this point, the backup will begin and complete. Once it finishes, you can then enable the backup to happen automatically. The one caveat is that you cannot determine the frequency of the backup.
Also: The best external hard drives you can buy
By default, Déjà Dup backs up every three days. You can, should you need, run a manual backup at any time by opening Déjà Dup and clicking Back Up Now. The backup you’ve configured will run and you’re good to go.
Your backup is complete and will happen again in 3 days. Jack Wallen/ZDNET
And that’s how easy it is to back up your folders on the Linux desktop. It doesn’t get much easier than this.
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