iPodBackup1.5.4

Name: iPodBackup
Rating: 4.6538 (5 reviews)

17 July 2005

Backup home folder to an iPod.

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Overview

iPodBackup is a shell script-turned-application (via Platypus) that backs up your home folder to your iPod using the open source backup utility rsync. Combine it with Do Something When to have fully automated incremental backups to your iPod, for free!

You can customize a list of items to be excluded by simply dragging-and-dropping them onto the app. By default, the Music folder, as well as certain cache folders are skipped, in order to prevent duplicating your music and because caches are a kind of stupid thing to backup.

Please see the iPodBackup info page for more usage info, as well as a detailed guide describing how I made the app.

A note for first-time users: The first backup can take quite a while, especially if you use an encrypted disk image! Subsequent backups will be much faster, as only files that have changed will be copied over.

What's new in iPodBackup

Growl notification support
Better handling of disk image mounting problems

20 Reviews of iPodBackup

When I first used this program, I was very excited. It has a simple interface, backups can be easily automated (using DoSomethingWhen) and it's free. However, after using this app for about a week and a half, for some reason I checked my backup. Because I use DSW to automatically run iPodBackup, I was backing up my home folder everyday. However, when I checked my backup disk image, none of the changes (added files, deleted files, etc.) had been recorded on the backup since my first backup. I tried trashing the backup file on my iPod and starting fresh, but this time I acted like it backed everything up, but created an empty disk image. I reinstalled the program (also trashed the prefs, exceptions file, and log), tried using the default settings, but still no luck. I'm running 10.3.9. Any help would be greatly appreciated. This application has a lot of potential; work through the bugs and it'd be great.

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What better use for your iPod's free space than a backup of your home folder ? iPodBackup wraps a simple graphical user interface over the rsync command-line file synchronization tool. Things work as expected, features and user preferences have been added with each version update. iPodBackup is perfect if you are looking for a simple, hassle-free backup tool. As a side note, it integrates perfectly with Mac OS X's disk image functionality, letting you back up your data to encrypted disk images.

This is an awesome program...I've never bothered backing up before but this is just way too easy. I've never bothered rating a program before, either...it's just that good! Thanks! :)

This is wonderful! The text-file configuration may scare some people, but it's simple and it does the job. If you just need to back up your home folder to your iPod, it's perfect.

This program hasn't worked for me since I tried it out the first time. Ironically, the only version that worked was one of the first, less mature, versions that was released. I've tried the last five releases and the same thing always happens. A folder is created on my 4G iPod then the program shuts down, leaving only a 36 MB file inside that folder. Since the first time I used iPodbackup, I've installed all the OSX Panther upgrades as they came out and switched from a G4 TiBook to an Aluminum G4. I wished I could make it work, it's a great idea and the first version I used worked flawlessly.

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Works great. Super simple to understand. Tried it out after a horrible experience with Intego Personal Backup (don't pay for that). This also lead me down the path to look at RSyncX for syncing my iBook with my G5 (Home directory only). Only major addition I would pay to see ... drag and drop for exclusions rather than manually editing plain test file. I have no problems, but my wife had a bunch of trial and errors, emphasis on the errors. This app is a bargain at twice the price :-D I have recommended it anyone that has an iPod and thinks that backups are a PITA.

Great piece of software. Really awesome. With spanish localization and under GPL license since version 1.3 good job amake

never been able to download the app nor connect to the site... gulps. would need a mirror somewhere.

Awesome program! Developer is very helpful; when I had problems with 'exploding logs' in 1.1.5, he tried to help me with the problems I was having, and has updated the program to allow for crash reports now. Does it's job quickly and efficiently. Should be used by every iPod user (never too many backups!).

Great program. This program with Peripheral Vision ensures that at least once a week, I have a current backup. Great work!

This is one of the best utilities out there. I finally keep a fairly up to date and secure backup of my system. This in conjunction with Do Something When is a perfect combination for me.

USE AT OWN RISK!!! I was using 1.1.4, and had no problems; 1.1.5 completely filled my main hard drive with log file gibberish, locked up my computer, and also took up 6 GB of space that I don't know where it is. Please fix this application, as I really do love it.

Show comments (9)

Very well done. Great job making it ignore music and catch files. Finally, a backup soultion I will acually use!

A simple, effective application that does precisely what I want it to: every time I connect my iPod (in conjunction with Peripheral Vision), it launches quietly, synchronizes my home folder to an encrypted disk image on my iPod, and leaves as quietly as it came, all without any interaction on my part. Although it is a fairly spare app (for instance, the only way to get detailed information on exactly what it's doing is to check the log file in ~/Library/Logs), the author does an excellent job of explaining both the development process of the application and exactly what it does on his web site. Highly recommended as a standard iPod backup solution.

Does not launch; nor did the last version advice re: "If 1.1b3 crashes on launch, delete the log file in "Logs" in the "Library" folder in your home folder! In other words, delete ~/Library/Logs/iPodBackup.log. FAILS to solve the problem"

Not to diss this application, but if you have a 40 gig iPod and FileVault ON you can log out of your user and into either root or some other Admin'd user, and copy the sparseimage to the 'pod. When you go into /Users/YOU/ you'll see the YOU.sparseimage, otherwise it's hidden in the ~/.YOU directory (but not as root, go figure). I keep 2-3 of these sparseimage 'snapshots' of my user directory sorted in named folders like user_bak20040701, 0802, etc To restore, just reverse the process above. Works like a charm. I have a bloated user directory and the sparseimages come in at just under 2 gig (meaning that 2 encrypted, secure images can be burned to DVD). These images can also be mounted, so that you can recover files (I've done this too after throwing out something and then recovering it from 2 week old bak.

Do tell, why on earth does it need an admin password?

iPodBackup1.5.4

Overview

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