From Away

Schedule Local Backups With iCal and Automator

June 14, 2007 at 09:30 AM

A while back Matt Brett posted a message on twitter that he was looking for a simple backup/sync solution for OSX. I dropped him an email with my backup solution and thought to myself that it would be a good idea to post it here as well. Of course, time passed and I still hadn’t gotten around to getting anything written up, until Matt posted an article on his site about the power of twitter, and mentioned my backup script. Since then I’ve had a constant stream of emails flowing into my inbox about my backup script, so finally, here it is.

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Network Backup Workflow

May 28, 2005 at 04:05 PM

Since I received a request from someone for the Automator Backup Workflow that I mentioned a few posts ago I decided that I would post the Workflow here because I’m sure that there are many others that can benefit from it.

A Few Notes

A few points before I begin explaining the workflow:

• This is in no way a complete backup solution. I’m not even sure that the workflow copies fork files, etc.
• However it is a good solution for backing up music purchased through the iTunes Music Store, as well as backing up documents and whatnot.
• Do not rely on this workflow for backing up applications or even application settings.
• Also, if anything bad happens to any files that you are copying using this workflow, please do not send an email blaming me for screwing up your files. I’m providing this workflow as-is in hopes that it will help a few of you out.

The Directions

And now on to the directions (each step below corresponds to the respective step in the workflow):

1. Select the network volume that you want to backup your files to in this step. If you’re backing up to a Samba volume (Windows, Linux, etc.) enter the the path as follows in the dialog: smb://computername/volumename. If you are backing up to an Apple Share enter the path as afp://computername/volumename. You may also specify multiple volumes in this step if needed.
2. This step will connect the volumes specified in step 1.
3. Select the files/folders that you wish to back up. Add as many as you like.
4. Select the destination folder to copy the items to for backup. You will need to mount your backup volumes in order to accomplish this.Note:You will need to repeat steps 3 and 4 for each backup volume that you selected in step 1.
5. Select the backup volumes that you have mounted in step 1 to be passed to step 6.
6. This step will eject all of your mounted backup volumes that you specified in step 5

I hope this will be of some help to at least a few of you. I use this workflow on a weekly basis to backup my purchased music from iTMS, however for my daily incremental backup needs, I still rely on Deja Vu. Also, if there are any improvements that anyone can suggest, please feel free to leave them in the comments and I’ll try to keep up with them and post the revised workflows.

The Goods

Download the Network Backup Workflow for Tiger Automator