Ubuntu Backups Using Déjà Dup/Duplicity

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Published: 4/26/2026

I use Déjà Dup to back up my files on Ubuntu. Déjà Dup is a user-friendly graphical user interface (GUI) designed primarily for Duplicity. It is included with Ubuntu and acts as a GNOME frontend to make complex backup processes simple, handling scheduling, encryption, and storage management on Linux.

Duplicity is a command-line backup tool that uses librsync and GPG to create compressed, encrypted, and incremental backups.

Using Déjà Dup

The following is a comprehensive tutorial on how to use Déjà Dup:

https://www.techtarget.com/searchdatabackup/tutorial/Tutorial-How-to-use-Linux-Deja-Dup-to-back-up-and-restore-files

Duplicity Command Lines

Déjà Dup was unavailble from my Windows laptop, so I had to use the following command lines when working with Duplicity on WSL2.

Create a Backup:

duplicity [source_directory] [target_url]
Example: duplicity /home/user scp://user@remotehost//backup/dir
Example: duplicity /home/user file:///media/<user>/toshiba/backup_dir

The first run creates a full backup; subsequent runs are incremental. 

Force a Full Backup:

duplicity full [source_directory] [target_url]

Restore Files:

duplicity [ext_drive_path or source_url] [target_directory]
duplicity file:///source/path /target/path

To restore a specific file: duplicity --file-to-restore [relative_path] [source_url] [target_directory]

List and Verify:

List files: duplicity list-current-files [target_url]
Check status: duplicity collection-status [target_url]
Verify integrity: duplicity verify [target_url] [local_directory]

Maintenance and Cleanup:

Remove old backups: duplicity remove-older-than [time] [target_url] (e.g., 30D for 30 days).
Keep specific number of full backups: duplicity remove-all-but-n-full [count] [target_url].

Reference

https://share.google/aimode/cWqPl3s0CicKmbOW2

Toshiba Ext Drive Fix

I sometimes get an error mounting my Toshiba Ext drive in Ubuntu. Below is a fix.

sudo ntfsfix /dev/sdc1 

sudo mount -t ntfs /dev/sdc1 /media/<user>/toshiba

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