I just can’t seem to figure out how to make it work. I’m so lost that I’m not even sure where the files should end up (after being backed up). It also seems like I need to save a file on the flash drive but again, I’m not sure which file.

You’re probably right in that I could’ve made the explanation for this a bit simpler.

You only really need two of the three, above scripts to make this work. The first script on this page (auto_backup.scpt), you need to download as-is and save it as a folder action as per the instructions right under it. The last script on this page (rsync.app) you need to download, extract (as the download is compressed), and simply move the extracted file on to the thumb drive you wish to have backed up.

Those are the two files you need. To modify the options for the backup, you need to open up Script Editor (found under Applications / Utilities), open the rsync.app file with it, modify the settings found at the beginning of the file, and save it.

Hope this helps you!

I know I’m really a novice on this so feel free to ignore me – I’d understand. But man I’d love to get this working. I’m on Leopard by the way.

Thanks!

Anyone else seen this? Have a solution?

The backup and eject script seems to work OK — this is only on the auto-backup when mounted script.

I am using Leopard, and am wondering if I am doing something wrong. I have a Backups folder that was created and the backup appears to have worked. But instead of using rsync to do incremental copies, it seems to just create an entire folder with the date appended.

Thus, if I have an almost full 2GB flash drive, every day I plug it this script uses almost 2GB per day.

That’s how rsync works. It copies everything using hard links. Therefore even though it looks like you have 5 different copies of all of your files, in fact you only have one copy that is pointed to from 5 different memory locations.

Try this: Go in your backups folder, click on one specific backup, and hit cmd-I to see it’s info. This will tell you the total size of that folder, which should be around 2gb (as it’s a whole copy of your memory stick). Now go one level up, to the Backups folder, and do the same. You’ll notice that the ENTIRE Backups folder, which contains all 5 backup copies of your memory stick, is in fact just over 2Gb and NOT 10Gb in size.

The ‘incremental’ aspect of the backup is automatically handled by rsync, where if a file hasn’t changed since the last copy, instead of copying it over it just creates a hard link to the copy saved by the previous backup..

I am using Leopard, and am wondering if I am doing something wrong. I have a Backups folder that was created and the backup appears to have worked. But instead of using rsync to do incremental copies, it seems to just create an entire folder with the date appended.

Thus, if I have an almost full 2GB flash drive, every day I plug it this script uses almost 2GB per day.

Am I wrong in expecting it to just create one folder and incrementally back it up? Does anyone know how I could modify the rsync command to do this?

Is there a way to do this in reverse?

i.e. So that when I mount my flash drive it executes an automatic backup of a specific folder or specific folders from my hard drive onto the flash drive?

Here is a link to a tutorial on how to do this: http://maclawstudents.com/blog/techniques/automatic-backups-to-usb-flash-drives/

It basically uses all Constantinos’ code but makes a backup _to_ your flash drive. It suffers from the same Leopard folder-action bug. But it works perfectly in Tiger.