# Features

**BudgieBackup** is a Windows backup suite (Version 0.9.26.249) made up of
CreateBudgieBackupFile, RunBudgieBackupFile, BudgieBackupSysTray,
BudgieBackupUpdater, BudgieBackupSync, and Budgie Backup.scr.

- **Home page:** https://budgiebackup.com (now live)
- **Documentation / back-end:** https://fearby.com/utilities/budgiebackup/

- **CreateBudgieBackupFile** — author a backup plan and save it as a
  `.budgiebackup` file.
- **RunBudgieBackupFile** — open a `.budgiebackup` file and execute the backup.

## CreateBudgieBackupFile (plan authoring)

### Choosing what to back up

- **Simple** screen: one checkbox per well-known location — personal folders
  (Documents, Desktop, Pictures, etc.), browser profiles, email data, AppData
  subtrees, and the Start Menu.
- **Advanced** screen: pick anything else on the machine, folder by folder.
- **Auto-detection** of installed browsers and email clients via the registry;
  unavailable apps are unticked and disabled.
- Backs up **OneDrive** (every signed-in account; only files already stored on
  this PC — online-only placeholders are skipped, not downloaded) and
  **Dropbox**.
- Add **custom folders or files** by browsing.
- Contextual help text as the mouse moves over each option.

### Understanding the selection

- Background **folder scanner** shows "N folders · N files · size" per row and
  a running total of everything ticked.
- **Progress bar** and busy cursor while scanning; hardened per-directory error
  handling with partial-scan markers.
- **Drive-type pills** per row — Solid State Drive (Fast), Magnetic Hard Drive
  (Slow), or Network (Medium) — detected without admin rights.
- **Drive S.M.A.R.T. data** and drive/file **icons**.
- Validation of backup destinations, with checks for destinations that sit
  inside source folders.
- **Drive-space forecast** in the footer — how full the Primary and Secondary
  destinations will be after the current selection, shown on the backup
  locations, simple and advanced screens, and updating as you tick.

### Options captured in the plan

- Primary and optional **secondary backup location**.
- Create a **System Restore point** before the backup.
- Include a **verbose log** and a **system log** inside the backup.
- **Prevent screen saver / sleep** during the backup.
- **Pause on lost focus**.
- **Compress after backup** (zip) — opt-in, off by default, with a warning
  about corruption after the backup potentially invalidating the archive.
- **Force split** archives under 4 GB (FAT32-friendly).
- Completion **sound**.

### Search

- **Search backup** form to find files within a backup; right-click to add
  results to the backup selection.

## RunBudgieBackupFile (plan execution)

- Opens `.budgiebackup` files via double-click, argument, or **drag-and-drop**.
- **Strict file checks on open** — a `.budgiebackup` file naming a malformed or
  unsafe path (over-long, hidden control characters, wildcards, `..` segments,
  Windows device names) is refused rather than run.
- **Pre-flight validation** before anything is touched — do the source folders
  still exist, is there enough free space, is the destination drive actually
  connected — reported up front rather than discovered halfway through a run.
- Runs an **ordered, numbered step list**; only whitelisted task types execute
  (displayed command strings are never run).
- **Volume Shadow Copy (VSS)** — one shadow copy per source volume so open /
  locked files copy cleanly; snapshots always cleaned up afterwards.
- **Backup-semantics fallback** (`SeBackupPrivilege`) for access-denied files,
  with an auto-exclude last resort that logs and reports skipped files rather
  than failing the run.
- **Streaming zip engine** (when compression is on) — archive lands inside the
  backup folder and grows from the first file; byte-accurate progress;
  **pause/cancel work mid-file**.
- **Auto Speed Boost** — an optional "Copy speed" tier (Normal / Fast / Max /
  Turbo / Insane (SSD)) that lets a plain, non-zip copy use more worker
  threads at once when the detected source/destination drives can safely take
  it, ramping up and backing off automatically based on measured throughput.
  Not available when compression is on, since compression always runs on a
  single thread by design.
- **FAT32 / large-backup splitting** into even 3.8 GB volumes
  (`Name.zip.001`, `.002`, …) that open in 7-Zip as a single tree.
- **Free-space checks** for primary and secondary destinations.
- **Copy to secondary location** after the primary backup.
- **Post-backup verification** — zip entry count re-read from disk must match
  before staged copies are removed; source folders are never touched.
- **Live system panel** with separate disk Read / Write gauges, plus a live
  worker-count / speed-boost gauge.
- **Remote monitor** — watch a running backup's progress from your phone or
  another device on your own Wi-Fi network, including via a QR code.
- **End-of-run statistics**; on success both bars snap to 100% and Explorer
  opens at the finished backup.

## BudgieBackupSysTray

- Quick access to the rest of the suite from the system tray — the front door
  to documentation, every log the suite has written, and the other apps.
- Shows global run stats on hover, and in a details view on double-click.
- Lists the 10 most recent `.budgiebackup` files, with search.
- Copies selected photos and videos from a connected iPhone.
- Experimental backup-scheduler interface — switched off in this build while it
  is finished and tested (see `roadmap.txt`).
- Optional launch at Windows startup.

## BudgieBackupUpdater

- Checks for and installs new builds across all the apps in the suite
  together, not one at a time.
- Lets you preview the change log before committing to a download.
- Reads updates from https://budgiebackup.com.

## BudgieBackupSync

- Optionally syncs a local Budgie Backup to a Backblaze B2 bucket you create
  and control — see `disclaimer.txt`, Section 13, for the full terms
  (Backblaze charges are yours alone).
- Start, pause, rescan, and cancel an upload.
- Remote monitor — watch upload progress from your phone, including via a QR
  code.
- Badges from your sync stats.

## Budgie Backup.scr

- Screen saver showing when the last backup ran, how much is protected,
  whether anything failed, and — if a backup is running right now — its live
  progress, alongside a news-ticker style status line and achievement badges.
- Multi-monitor support, burn-in protection (fade in/out), and preferences.

## Shared across the suite

- **Bug report tool** — Ctrl+Alt+F12 on any form zips logs and screenshots and
  uploads them.
- **Update checker** and **About** box.
- **Disclaimer** screen with countdown on first run.
- Admin **manifest / elevation** handling.
- **Verbose session logging** with unhandled-exception capture.
- **7-Zip engine** auto-located across common install paths (a missing DLL is
  non-fatal).

Released 13 September 2026 (v0.9.26.257)