Backup forum

EvenSteven · 2021-07-24 21:12:50

This question is about a basic feature of IDrive. I should know how this works but do not.

On the "Backup" tab I select files / folders for backup. Easy Peasy.

On the "Settings" tab there is a list of folders ticked to exclude from backup. The help balloon says: "Files / folders that are present in the excluded list will not be considered for backup if these items are part of your backup set." That list with tick marks was already there - I did not build it. That's where I'm confused.

There are folders in that "excluded list" that are included in my backup set (My Music, My Videos, and My Pictures) that are backing up just fine. What am I missing?

This is shown here in 2 screen-shots:

Thanks in advance.

Last edited by EvenSteven (2021-07-25 02:49:19)

EvenSteven · 2021-07-25 18:59:18

This morning I had a Chat with Melvin @ IDrive about another matter and took the opportunity to ask about this topic.
I still don't exactly understand the purpose (of "Exclude files / folders from backup") but he gave me something to think about. Still waiting for that "Eureka moment".
This is from that Chat:

[Steve]
I have a basic question about functionality.
On the Settings tab, "exclude files / folders from backup", it seem that folders are marked to exclude, but are actually being backed up. Such at "My Music", My Pictures, etc.
I don't understand how that works.
They are excluded by default but are being backed up.

[Melvin @ IDrive]
The folders such as My Music/My Pictures, etc are junction folders. Those are not actual folder paths.
Thus if you need to really exclude them from the backup-set, you can right-click on the folder from the backup-set and exclude them directly

[Steve]
So what's the purpose of this exclude files / folders thing?
How would I use that?

[Melvin @ IDrive]
With regards to the music folder, I will explain you more.

These are junction( shortcut) folders that get redirected to Music, Videos, and Pictures respectively. These paths doesn't exist on the local machine:

C:\Users\Public\Documents\My Music\

C:\Users\Public\Documents\My Pictures

C:\Users\Public\Documents\My Videos\

So in real not the exact music folder is excluded, just the junction path is excluded from the backup
The actual path for those folders will be like as below

C:\Users\Public\Music\

Public will be your respective windows username
So if you need to exclude those folder from the backup>>Go to the exclude list and add the correct path such as

C:\Users\Windows username\Music\

[Steve]
Ok, I sort of get it. I'm saving this chat to re-read until I get it. That's it for now. I'll cross my fingers and reboot. Melvin, thanks for the help.

[Melvin @ IDrive]
Sure, I will drop an email with this chat transcript so that you can check on it later.

[Steve]
OK, perfect. Thanks you
Have a good one. Thanks again.

SteveA · 2021-07-25 19:41:05

EvenSteven wrote:
I still don't exactly understand the purpose (of "Exclude files / folders from backup") but he gave me something to think about. Still waiting for that "Eureka moment".

They are excluding the "MY" folders because they are shortcuts. Back in the day Windows (pre Vista) had actual folders with those names, but now the real folders are just "Music", "Documents", "Videos" which aren't excluded so still get backed up.

One way you could use the exclude feature would be if you wanted to backup a multi-level folder tree, but exclude a particular part of if.

For example, this structure:

c:\files
c:\files\spreadsheets
c:\files\letters
c:\files\images
c:\files\tempstuff
c:\files\invoices

You may want to keep everything in "files" backed up, but exclude "tempstuff". Rather than manually selecting each sub-folder, you could simply select "files" (which would include "tempstuff"), but use the exclude feature to ensure it doesn't get backed up.

You can also exclude files with wildcard masks, so if you have an application that creates lots of temporary files with an identifiable pattern, you can stop them from being backed up.

A useful exclude I added to mine was the partial filename "~*.pst.tmp". If you use MS Outlook, it will create files with this pattern while its running and IDrive will attempt to back them up, but invariably they have disappeared by the time it gets to them, creating an error. Having this exclusion stops this problem.

EvenSteven · 2021-07-28 04:28:25

OK, I get it now: make inclusions on "Backup" tab and exclusions on the "Settings" tab. The principle makes sense but the layout seems a little kludgy for someone just learning it. Now that I understand how it works that won't be a problem.

I of course made a mistake in the bottom slide (above) when I incorrectly said "Documents\My Music", "Documents\My Videos", and "Documents\My Pictures" were part of my backup set. I had forgotten that structure being used by Vista. I suppose they are listed here for legacy purposes but that creates a logic problem for me which I will ignore since it does not affect me.

It's all good now, thanks for the help.

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#1 2021-07-24 21:12:50

"Exclude files / folders from backup" ?

#2 2021-07-25 18:59:18

Re: "Exclude files / folders from backup" ?

#3 2021-07-25 19:41:05

Re: "Exclude files / folders from backup" ?

EvenSteven wrote:

#4 2021-07-28 04:28:25

Re: "Exclude files / folders from backup" ?

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