Genie Timeline - “home” backup level

IT professionals can easily set up backups at home, for example, using rsync, creating rar archives by task scheduler, incremental backups to the Internet (not to mention setting up tar + cron or bacula at work). However, non-specialists (for the home) will use backup programs that are much simpler. Consider a program that hides behind the usual simplicity for a home user, a flexible and well-designed backup tool.

This article focuses on the free version of Genie Timeline - Free (Noncommercial), with minor limitations and differences from the paid versions (for example, there is no backup from Blackberry phones). It is worth mentioning that the Pro-version is used by companies such as NASA, Siemens, NEC, ZyXEL and Philips.

After telling the program where to make backup copies, choose what we will periodically save: mail, documents, music, video, desktop contents, bookmarks, etc., or select certain files and folders — the Select individual files button will open the My Computer tab :


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If the disk on which backups will be made is removable, external - the program itself will perform copying on it when it is connected to the computer.
Also here, “Filter my selections” can exclude the specified file types.

After clicking “Next”, Genie Timeline will start making the first backup (while the background mode can be accelerated by clicking “Turbo mode” - in this case, the program will continue to copy without waiting for the computer to be idle). Naturally, in the future, in real time, only those files will be backed up (strictly speaking, parts of these files) that have been changed. During games, you can pause the program and, if necessary, start the backup process manually - the “Pause” and “Run now” items in the main window, respectively.

To restore a deleted or modified file, use the “Timeline Explorer” item in the My Computer explorer window:


^{appearance timeline explorer}

By moving the slider, the user can find the desired date and restore the desired file that has been deleted or changed (“return in time” resembles Apple Time Machine remotely). To find any document here, it is enough to use the search item “Search” in the context menu of the icon programs in the system tray.
The installed windows-service Genie Timeline Service brings up the web server on port 5501 and shows the search results in the browser - with the ability to restore from here (the general information is always available at http: // localhost: 5501 / BackupOverView.php ).

To, on the contrary, exclude some files from falling into the backup - put them in the special NoBackupZone folder on the Desktop or select the “Exclude from backup” option in the context menu of these files. From the same context menu of the operating system, you can add a specific folder to the performed backups, see which files have been deleted in this folder and view the “versions” of these documents as of different dates (the “Show versions” item).

Available and the ability to receive notifications about backup results to your E-mail - the letter can be sent to you regularly or only with any errors. To send letters you only need to register an account on the official page . Additionally, in the settings, you can specify the program to conduct more detailed logs in a text file.
The program also builds a pie chart by data type - you can always get visual information by just clicking on the bottom bar of the main window:



The “Run now” link in the main window will bring the backup to the end, even if the Genie Timeline shows that copying is suspended at 99%.

Genie Timeline comes with LaCie external hard drives. I use the free- distribution LaCie edition from the site Wuala LaCie. The original version of Genie Timeline Free "decorated" with links to Twitter, facebook, etc., can be downloaded from here .
The size of the distribution is 30 MB, only under Windows (for the developer, as I understood it, everything is for one platform only).

If you are looking for a free program that works on the principle — easy to install and forget — until you need it, a simple recovery program, one that your friend or relative will immediately understand, a program without obvious shortcomings, without annoying messages and not consuming a lot of resources - this should suit you.