This is a command line application to manage and fine-tune Time Machine exclude paths.

brew tap tg44/heptapod

brew install heptapod

To print help;

heptapod -h
heptapod <action> -h

Move (and use) the default ruleset;

mkdir -p ~/.heptapod/rules
cp -R $(brew --prefix heptapod)/rules ~/.heptapod

Lists all the rules (you get 4 tables, enabled, disabled, parseable but unrunable and unparsable).

heptapod rules ls -a

Enable/disable rules (by name), or add/remove ignore folders;

heptapod rules disable node bower
heptapod rules enable bower
heptapod rules ignoreAdd ~/.Trash ~/.yarn/cache ~/Library
heptapod rules ignoreRemove ~/.Trash

List all the currently excluded TM paths;

heptapod tm ls

Dryrun the current rules, in verbose mode, also log speed and debug informations. (Potentially list nonexistent directories and files!)

heptapod -v run -d

To run the current rules, and add the dirs to the TM exclude list. Also writes exclude logs to ~/.heptapod/logs (or the given --logDir dir) for easier revert.

heptapod run

To revert all the previously added paths from the run-exclude-logs. (prune -h could tell you the other useful revert options).

heptapod prune -a

When you try to migrate your TM state to a new machine xcode-select --install may be needed. Somehow this is sometimes not migrating as you thought it will.

Every rule has a searchPaths, ignorePaths.

• name for categorization
• enabled for easier enable/disable
• searchPaths are the root of the rule search like ~
• ignorePaths are subpaths that we want to ignore to make the run quicker
  • like we want to parse dirs under ~, but not ~/Downloads
• type is the ruletype
  • file-trigger
  • regexp
  • ignore-files
• settings other type setting see below

Parses the .gitignore or .dockerignore files, and excludes its contents.

• forceAddPaths are files that we add even if they would be otherwise excluded
  • like .gitignore ignores .env files but we forcefully want to add them back
• fileName
  • .gitignore or .dockerignore

Ignores all files/folders with the given regexp. This can be slow!

• regexp

Ignores files/dirs based on other files existence, made for easy language dep ignores.

• fileTrigger like package.json or .git
• excludePaths like node-modules or .

• asimov
• tmignore
• various stack exchange responses
• tmutil

If you are interested in this repo, star it, and write an issue, and we can talk about future ideas there!

done:

• architecture the protocol/configs
• most of asimov's features are ported
• example rules added
• command line interface
• option to dryrun, show inner states, write to file
• purge option
  • we should write down what paths excluded by us, and include them back
• brew package
• ghactions
• rule manage commands (list/enable/disable/ignoreAdd/ignoreRemove)

todos:

• handle global deps (m2, ivy, nvm, npm)
• support tmignore functionality
• support tmignore like funcionality with dockerignore
• regexp pattern
• hook to rerun periodically/before tmbackups
• port asimov's issues (spotify, spotlight)
• docker support (at least tell if docker vm is persisted or not)
  • this is kinda easy with tmutil.GetExcludeList()
• android vms?
  • this should be also easy
• preemptive search that tells you how many files with which size will be excluded/included
  • nice to have, we can tell the sizes, but counting files need to actually count the files which could be slow AH
• speedtest it
• modify the backup intervals and frequencies
  • not sure it can be done with tmutil, but there are applications for this
• probably adding . and .. will break the execution shortcuts and need to fix them
• wildcards like *.sh not working right now, do we want to make them work?