Feature request - allow to add files to a backup, without having to have them all in source

[bakai-taalaibek]

Have you checked borgbackup docs, FAQ, and open GitHub issues?

Yes

Is this a BUG / ISSUE report or a QUESTION?

Feature request

System information. For client/server mode post info for both machines.

I backup stuff to my external HDD

Your borg version (borg -V).

I use Pika backup

Operating system (distribution) and version.

Debian 12

Hardware / network configuration, and filesystems used.

From NTFS SSD to Ext4 HDD

How much data is handled by borg?

About 300 GB

Full borg commandline that lead to the problem (leave away excludes and passwords)

I use Pika backup

Describe the problem you're observing.

We don't have real 'append only'.

Lets say I backup my Movies folder on my PC to Movies repo on my HDD. I add a movie to my Movies folder on my PC and backup, so it is backed up to my HDD. Then I delete this movie on my PC. Then next week I add another movie to my Movies folder on my PC and backup. I want both movies to exist in my backup, but only the last movie exists in the latest archive in my backup. So to find my movies I would have to look in different archives.

Can you reproduce the problem? If so, describe how. If not, describe troubleshooting steps you took before opening the issue.

It is a known absence of feature.

Include any warning/errors/backtraces from the system logs

No warnings or errors

[infectormp]

If you will not run borg prune you will have all films in backup. So your backup will be in virtual append only mode until you are not pruning it.

[RonnyPfannschmidt]

Your use case sounds more like git annex

[ThomasWaldmann]

borg backup archives always are full backups of all the files in your backup source (the paths you give to borg, minus the excludes you specify) as they were present at the time of backup.

if you want to have easy access to all your files, you either can:

• not delete stuff at the source, so the latest archive always contains all you need
• not delete backup archives and then try to restore stuff from multiple archives (could be a bit tedious I guess, but borg mount -o versions might help)

Due to the deduplication, it is rather cheap (storage wise) to keep many archives. But keep in mind that some borg operations take more time if you have more archives, e.g. borg check.

[bakai-taalaibek]

Maybe at least add an option to merge archives into one, so that my movies and thousands of other files are not spread out in 50-100... archives

[ThomasWaldmann]

If you want to have a merge operation, I suggest you plan how that would work and open a new ticket or PR with your proposal - just a hint what you need to consider:

• file content
• file metadata
• file type changes
• added, deleted, changed content/metadata
• all possible combinations of the above

Also you need to consider that some of these may conflict, so a merge maybe can not be decided automatically.