Features Summary

Intuitive interface

With the help of the file tree, you can see all files included in the backup and the new files that will be stored at next backup execution. You can sort and search this file tree. You can start the application at Windows startup or minimize it to the system tray.

Flexibility

Backup4all is very flexible, allowing you to run almost any backup operation you might require.

Getting Started

The Startup Window will lead you to the correct place in application even if you have not used Backup4all before. This way you will be able to perform backup/restore operations in few steps.

Manage multiple backup jobs

You can define multiple backups and save them for future use. On the main form, you have an overview of all defined backups organized in groups. You can create shortcuts to any backup job and execute it with a double click from your desktop or other location. Backup4all comes with several predefined backup jobs: My Documents, My Pictures, Outlook Express, Internet Explorer Favorites, Mozilla FireFox Profiles, Mozilla Thunderbird and Backup4all Configurations.

Email notifications

You can configure Backup4all to send custom emails after a finished backup with success, error, warning notifications. Additional options allow you to attach the backup log file and send the email to several addresses.

Backup destination

You can store the backup in a local folder, on another computer in the same LAN, on USB drives, on CD-R, CD-RW, DVD+R, DVD-R, DVD+RW, DVD-RW remote locations using the FTP service (with SSL support, active/passive transfer modes, firewall support) or other removable media.

Backup directly to CD and DVD

Backup4all comes with its own built-in CD/DVD burning support. Just set the destination to the CD or DVD burner and execute the backup job. If you prefer, you can still use UDF format to burn your CDs and DVDs.

Backup4all also has the possibility to erase CD-RW/DVD-RW media.

AES encryption

Backup4all supports 128-bit, 192-bit and 256-bit AES encryption. These numbers reflect the encryption key size used to encrypt the data, thus a higher key size provides stronger encryption.

Backup locked or open files

Backup4all uses the Volume Shadow Copy service that allows you to back up local open files from NTFS partitions in Windows XP/2003/Vista. Now you can backup your emails and settings without closing Microsoft Outlook, Outlook Express or other email clients.

Create backup shortcut

You can create a "shortcut" of a backup job or backup group to a desired location. Whenever you will double click that shortcut, the associated backup will start running.

Backup Plugins

Starting with version 3.10 is possible to load plugins to backup/restore the settings of specific programs. A plugin is actually an XML file that once imported in Backup4all adds a predefined backup. For instance, a backup plugin for Mozilla FireFox, when loaded, will automatically add in the Predefined Backup list an entry for Firefox, so when defining a new backup job if that’s selected, the FireFox profiles will be added as source for the new backup.

Backup View

You can see what files are in each backup. You can also see if the files was added, modified or excluded in a specific backup execution.

Statistics

You can actually see the number of files that will be processed at next backup (very useful when you have a large number of files). Other information refers to the size and date of the executed backups and the available free space on storage destination.

Summary

Textual description of all configurations made to a backup job.

New backup wizard

Provides step-by-step instructions to create a new backup job.

Easy file and folder selection

You can browse a folder tree to select individual files and folders as source of the backup or you can include or exclude them individually.

View jobs as

You can see the jobs in the backup list as Tree, Icons or List. This will help you to arrange the backup jobs for a better management and look.

Backup types

Backup4all performs: full backups, differential backups, incremental backups and mirror backups.

Backup4all can also delete the source files (after a backup successfully completed) and empty directories.

Pause/Resume

Using the Pause/Resume buttons, you can pause a backup execution and you can continue it after that.

Stop

Using the Stop button is different than Cancel. When you press Stop, the backup is not aborted, but the process will end after the current file is backed up and the catalog is saved.

Cleanup

Using this button, you can delete from the destination and from the catalog the backup versions you do not need. This action can be performed manual or it can be scheduled using cleanup parameters.

File/folder filters

Powerful filtering engine with lots of options (filter by attribute, size, date, name and type). You can build filters using a combination of restrictions and you can define separate filters for inclusion and exclusion.

You can define filters and use them in the New backup wizard or later. Filters can be defined as include or exclude.

Built-in scheduler

You can easily set up a powerful scheduler using the available scheduler configurations to make unattended backups.

Extra actions

Perform extra actions before and/or after the backup execution.

Test backup

The application tests the backups (using CRC32). This ensures that the files have been backed up properly and the backup is safe. You can also test the backup integrity at a later time from the application main menu.

When backing up to removable media, after each media item written the backup test is performed (for spanned backups).

When backing up to FTP, the XCRC command can be used (if supported by server). This speeds up the testing as Backup4all will verify the backup based on the CRC information received from server.

Standard zip compression

Backup4all creates standard zip files. This means that your data is not at the mercy of the utility itself; you can access it with any zip compatible utility.

Customized zip names

You can customize name prefixes for the zip archives, which store your backup versions. Backup4all also supports file/folder paths longer than 260 characters (turn off file parsing).

Password protection

You can protect your zip files by setting a password for each backup.

Snapshots

The mirror backup type makes an exact copy of selected files and folders.

Disk spanning

Automated support for splitting your backup between many removable disks or even on the same media. You can specify the maximum size of the zip archives.

When performing a mirror backup and using disk spanning you can choose not to split the files. This is an useful option because you can copy your music/movies to CD or DVD and not have them trimmed when the CD or DVD is full.

Multi-thread

Backup4all allows you to execute a whole group of backups at once, showing the progress of each backup.

Logs

The operations performed by Backup4all are logged. You can change the location of the log file if you want to store it in a different place.

Command line

There is a command line version of Backup4all available. You can use the "Backup4all Scheduler" to schedule backups.

Restore wizard

Restore backed up data step-by-step. Allows you to choose the version of files which will be restored and filter them to restore only the files that are needed.

Restore

You can quickly restore any file version, the latest version of the files or a whole folder from the backup job.

If you have a large backup that spans over several removable media (CD/DVD, floppy) each spanned backup can be independently restored. Thus, if one of the spanned backups is corrupted you can still restore the other files.

Compatibility

Restore can also be performed via any standard zip software, giving you more flexibility, if you need to restore on a different computer (if the backup was created using independent splits, see this section on how to restore correctly using 3rd party zip utilities).

Backup on demand

Some USB enclosures have a button to start the execution of an associated program. If you have such a device, you can configure Backup4all to execute a backup job or a backup group when this button is pressed.

Play custom sounds

Backup4all can play custom success/warning/error sounds at the end of the backup.

File warnings

File warnings like access denied, locked files, etc. are displayed to the user during backup execution if the user chooses so. These warnings are also written to the log file. Scheduled backups do not show these warnings even when this option is set. Default is checked.

Check for Updates

You can set Backup4all to automatically check for updates with a specified frequency or you can manually check for updates.

Backup catalog

Backup4all stores a summary snapshot of the file information into a backup catalog file (.bkc) each time a backup job is run. For every file backed up, the snapshot contains the file name, size and attributes as well as the date and time of creation, modification and access. The backup catalog is stored both locally and remotely (for backups to removable media or remote locations).

Security

You can add a security password to lock the program interface. This way only the system administrator will be able to access and modify the backups.

Related Topics:

What Edition to Choose?

Feature Matrix