Using Cloud Services for Backups

Tagged with code, linux, overgrive, rsync, timeshift on January 10, 2025

When I wrote about my computer backups, I was using overGrive to transfer some files to Google Drive. That was only because Google never created an official client for Linux. Months later, when I attempted to set it up on a clean Linux installation, I couldn’t. The overGrive website explains what happened. Although there are other cloud services with free storage options, they aren’t any better.

There are many backup options that don’t require dedicated clients, and I’ve used more than one because they have different uses.

Timeshift

From the GitHub page about Timeshift (with a minor correction):

Timeshift for Linux is an application that provides functionality similar to the System Restore feature in Windows and the Time Machine tool in macOS. Timeshift protects your system by taking incremental snapshots of the file system at regular intervals. These snapshots can be restored at a later date to undo all changes to the system.

By default, Timeshift doesn’t back up the home directory. That’s where all the documents and downloads are normally stored, along with user-specific configuration files. Adding the home directory creates huge backup files. I only keep one daily backup, and I only need to restore it when I screw something up so badly that I can’t fix it some other way. That hasn’t even happened yet.

Rsync

From the rsync website (with minor corrections):

Rsync is an open-source utility that provides fast incremental file transfers.

Rsync runs locally and remotely, but it doesn’t work with cloud services because cloud services require APIs. The best use of rsync is to copy files from device to device. This is how I use it when I have two computers running:

rsync -avzh -e ssh /home/localusername/directory/ [email protected]:/home/remoteusername/directory/ --delete

I’m not using rsync now because I’m only using one computer (of three).

Rclone

Rclone is specifically used to back up files to cloud services. It’s the utility I’m currently using to back up my “Documents” directory to Google Drive. The Rclone documentation gives instructions on how to use it on many cloud services including Box, Dropbox, Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, pCloud, and services I’ve never heard of.

Most cloud services offer a few gigabytes of storage space for free, with paid upgrades available. Google Drive offers 15 gigabytes per account, which includes Gmail and Google Photos in that storage space. Even though backups of my phone’s photos are on my main account, along with my document backups, I haven’t even come close to 15 gigabytes.

Online Accounts

The “Online Accounts” application, also called GNOME Online Accounts, lets you to connect your computer to one of the cloud services it supports. I have multiple Google accounts and I enable “Files” on all of them, which creates Google Drive network directories on my computer. They’re not active until I click on them and mount them.

I only have “Calendar” enabled for my main account, so that the items from Google Calendar get displayed in my computer’s calendar application and calendar applet.

The main purpose of having these connections is being able to retrieve files that have been previously backed up, without having to use Google Drive in the web browser. It’s also good for moving random files off my computer. Some extremely large files, like ISO files in the gigabytes, still upload faster in the web browser.

Image by 200 Degrees from Pixabay