How to Configure a New Backup

To create a new backup job, click on the New Backup Wizard toolbar button (). For each backup job you must specify at least its name, a valid storage destination and the source files (first two steps of this wizard), the rest of the options not being mandatory. In New Backup Wizard, you can switch anytime to Advanced mode for more configuration options.

These are the steps you must perform in the New Backup Wizard :

1) S elect a location where you want to save the backup. You can choose as destination:

Click Next to go to the following step.

2) Select the files and folders you want to backup (sources of the backup) from the local drives or choose a backup plugin or an online location then click Next.

You can combine sources from local drives with backup plugins and with online sources.

Online connections available are: LAN, Google Drive, Dropbox, FTP, SFTP, Azure, Amazon S3, Google Cloud Storage, OneDrive, Box, HiDrive and S3 Compatible.

Press Define new button to add a new online connection which you can use as backup source.

All online connections added in File->Options->Online connections, will also be available in New Backup Wizard, on Sources page.

3) Filter your sources

By default, only system and temporary files are excluded from the backup sources (as Automatic filters). If you want to include only Documents, Images, Music files or Video files, you need to enable those predefined filters (as User defined filters). Please note this way only the files matching the filters will be included in backup.

4) Select how do you want to backup. By default, the Smart type is selected.

By default, Smart type is using 80% of the destination space. If you want to use the entire destination space only for that backup job, you can select the "Use the entire available destination space" option. If you back up large files, you might want to enable the "Use block backup" option, to back up only the modified parts of each file.

You can also use encryption for the backup types that creates zip files.

5) Choose when do you want to backup: how often, what day and what hour. Schedule the backup job for unattended backup executions.

If you want to receive email notifications, you can configure the SMTP server and then set the email address where to receive the notifications. The log file can also be attached to email in the original format or compressed.

6) Enter the name of the backup in the Backup name field, then press Next

Backup4all provides extended information about the backup, which can be consulted before the backup execution. You can switch between views by selecting one of the available views from the Job view menu:

Explore - shows the source files and folders for the backup jobBackup - shows the list of backup executions with their sources statuses before each execution

The wizard creates an ".ini" file in the IniFiles folder (usually in C:\<user>\AppData\Roaming\Softland\Backup4all 9\) with the same name as the backup job's ID. In addition, a backup catalog file (".bkc") is created both in the destination and locally in the Catalogs folder (the same directory as where the IniFiles folder is created).

Manually modifying ".bkc" or ".ini" files may result in corrupted backup jobs and the impossibility of restoring the data you backed up. A backup job is automatically created when double clicking on a ".bkc" file. You can also recreate the backup job by opening a ".bkc" or ".ini" file from the File->Open menu.

Once the backup job is created, it will be displayed on the center column of the application's main window. On the right, you will see the content of the backup job (files and folders), depending on the chosen view (explore, backup or statistics) and on the left side you will see the tags list.

Note: One or more of the features mentioned in this chapter might not be available in your edition. The Professional edition includes all the features. For a comparison between editions, please check feature matrix topic.