Introduction
Data is an integral part of our digital lives. Whether it's personal files, business data, or system settings, losing data can be a significant setback. To mitigate this risk, you need robust backup tools. Linux, being a favorite among many power users and sysadmins, offers several powerful and versatile backup tools.

This article aims to introduce you to some of the best backup tools for Linux, their features, and how to use them.
Rsync
Rsync is a fast, versatile, remote (and local) file-copying tool. It's a command-line utility that synchronizes files and directories from one location to another while minimizing data transfer by using delta encoding when appropriate.
Here's a basic example of using rsync to backup a directory:
rsync -av /source/directory /destination/directory
This command syncs the source directory with the destination directory, preserving file permissions (-a), and provides verbose output (-v).
Deja Dup (Duplicity)
Deja Dup is a simple and easy-to-use GUI tool for backup. It's the default backup tool on several Linux distributions. Deja Dup is a frontend to the command-line tool Duplicity. It supports scheduled backups, file encryption, and backup to local or remote locations.
Here's an example of a Duplicity command to backup a directory:
duplicity /source/directory file:///destination/directory
Timeshift
Timeshift is an excellent tool for backing up system files and settings. It's similar to the System Restore feature in Windows and the Time Machine tool in Mac OS. Timeshift protects your system by taking incremental snapshots of the file system at regular intervals.
Here's how to create a snapshot with Timeshift from the command line:
sudo timeshift --create --comments "A description for the snapshot"
BorgBackup
BorgBackup (or Borg) is a deduplicating backup program that supports compression and authenticated encryption. Deduplication is done at the chunk level, saving disk space by only backing up the changes made since the last backup.
Here's a basic Borg command to backup a directory:
borg create /path/to/repo::Monday /source/directory
This command creates a backup archive named "Monday" for the source directory in the specified repository.