Block-level backup of Windows and Linux disks and volumes, with boot media to restore from.
Own Backup copies whole disks and volumes block by block: only used clusters go into a backup, and excluded files do not go in at all. A backup can be encrypted with a password. From a backup you can restore a partition, a disk or individual files — and, from the boot medium, the disk Windows itself boots from.
0.1.7-beta is a prerelease; the Linux version is new since 0.1.6-beta. Check an important backup by restoring it to a spare disk or a virtual machine before you rely on it — on Linux especially.
| Edition | Download | Usage |
|---|---|---|
| Windows installer | own-backup-install.exe | Installs the program for all users of the computer and starts its backup service. Needs administrator rights. |
| Linux package | own-backup_0.1.7.beta-1_amd64.deb | sudo apt install ./own-backup_0.1.7.beta-1_amd64.deb installs the program, starts its service and adds you to the own-backup group (sign in again to open the window). |
| Linux boot medium | OwnBackup-Linux-0.1.7.beta-1_amd64.iso | Boots a computer from a CD or a USB stick (UEFI with Secure Boot, or BIOS) to back up or restore its disks, Windows ones included. The window writes it onto a stick. |
Windows 10/11, x64. The window needs the Microsoft Edge WebView2 Runtime — part of Windows 11, and the installer says so if a Windows 10 does not have it. Linux: Ubuntu 24.04 or newer, Debian 13 or newer, amd64; the package brings WebKitGTK and the rest of what the window needs. No advertising, no telemetry, no update checks. All releases · Changelog.
- Run the installer. It registers the Own Backup service, which does the work that needs administrator rights; the window itself runs without them.
- Open Own Backup from the Start menu and create a job under Backup: what to copy, where to, in which format and on what schedule.
- Run the job, then check the result under Tools → Validate image or by mounting the backup as a disk.
- Build the boot medium under Tools → Bootable media while the computer still works — it is what restores a system disk.
The interface is in English and Russian, with light, dark and system themes.
- Full, incremental and differential backups of volumes and whole disks; a job can keep a sliding window of increments, the oldest folded into the base.
- Only used clusters are read (NTFS, ReFS, FAT32, exFAT), from a VSS snapshot when the system is running.
- Three formats: VHDX (Windows mounts it by itself), qcow2 (zstd compression) and OBK (zstd and AES-256-GCM, opened with a password or a recovery key).
- Exclusions that really exclude: matched files are not read and their entries are removed from the filesystem inside the image, not left as empty ghosts.
- BitLocker volumes, locked ones included, are copied decrypted — with the password or the 48-digit recovery key.
- Per-block xxHash64 checksums and verification after a backup or on demand.
- Restore of a partition or a whole bootable disk, UEFI boot entries included, with a guard against overwriting the disk the system runs from.
- A boot medium built from the computer's own Windows recovery environment, with the same interface on it.
- A backup mounted as a disk through Windows' own iSCSI initiator: no third-party driver is installed.
- Schedules and events (logon, startup, a destination disk plugged in), retries, wake from sleep, an optional shutdown afterwards.
- A window, a command line and a service: the service runs as LocalSystem and answers over a named pipe with restricted access.
- NTFS/ReFS and FAT32/exFAT exclusions have live acceptance runs. ext2/3/4 and btrfs metadata removal have filesystem checks and mount/write tests.
- On ext4, XFS and btrfs a file that cannot be removed safely stays as a zero-filled entry; the result of the run says how many.
- Linux: a running volume is copied from an LVM or device-mapper snapshot. A busy plain partition (an ext4 root without LVM or LUKS) cannot be held still while it runs — copy it from the boot medium. A volume group spread over several disks is copied only with a warning.
- Exclusions inside an encrypted ReFS source may be skipped, with an explicit warning in the result.
- New
.obkimages use two header generations. A boot medium built by an older version cannot open them: rebuild the medium with this version. - TPM-only BitLocker volumes are not opened by the program itself.
- On the developer's machine, current plans and historical evidence are kept
locally in
.ai/; this directory is excluded from the repository.
| What | Where |
|---|---|
| The program | C:\Program Files\OwnBackup |
| Settings, jobs, run history, remembered volume keys | C:\ProgramData\OwnBackup |
| Service log, one file a day, thirty days kept | Logs\own-backup-service-<date>.log in the program folder |
| What the window remembers: theme, language | %LOCALAPPDATA%\com.ownbackup.gui |
| Backups | wherever each job says; the program keeps none of its own |
On Linux the program is in /usr/bin and /usr/libexec/own-backup, settings,
jobs and keys in /var/lib/own-backup, and the service log in journald
(journalctl -u own-backup) and /var/log/own-backup.
Running the installer again updates the program where it is. The uninstaller keeps the settings unless you tell it otherwise, a silent removal always keeps them, and backups are never touched.
own-backup-cli.exe --help
own-backup-cli.exe list-disks
own-backup-cli.exe jobs status
own-backup-cli.exe verify D:\Backups\disk.vhdx
own-backup-service.exe /statusown-backup-install.exe /S installs silently; /D=<folder>, as the last
argument, chooses the folder of a first installation.
Rust 1.98.1 is pinned in rust-toolchain.toml; the window's pages need Node 24
and the build scripts need protoc. On Linux, Tauri needs the packages listed
in its prerequisites.
cd crates/gui/frontend && npm ci && npm run build && cd ../../..
cargo test --workspace --locked
cargo xwin check --workspace --locked --target x86_64-pc-windows-msvc
sudo apt install nsis # once, for makensis
scripts/build-installer.sh # target/dist/own-backup-install.exe
scripts/build-deb.sh # target/dist/own-backup_<version>_amd64.deb
scripts/build-linux-media.sh # target/dist/own-backup-media_<version>_amd64.isoBuild the .deb on Ubuntu 24.04, the oldest supported system: the package
requires the glibc and WebKitGTK it was linked against. The boot medium needs
root, debootstrap and the Debian mirror.
The last script builds the frontend and the four release executables with
cargo xwin and packs them with NSIS
(packaging/windows/own-backup.nsi);
--skip-build packs what is already built. On Windows, build with
cargo build --release --target x86_64-pc-windows-msvc and run the same script
from Git Bash with --skip-build. VSS, DPAPI, iSCSI and raw disk I/O cannot be
exercised by a cross-compile: scripts/lab/run-installer.py runs the installer
in a throwaway Windows VM, and disk restore has to be checked on a Windows or
WinPE machine.
Pushing a version tag such as v0.1.7-beta starts the
release workflow. The tag must match the
version in Cargo.toml. GitHub builds the Windows x64 executables, packs the
installer, installs and removes it on the runner, computes SHA-256 checksums
and publishes the release only after the files are ready. A version with a
suffix is marked as a prerelease. The workflow can also be run by hand for an
existing tag, or as a dry run that publishes nothing. The Linux package and
boot medium are built locally and added to the release.
Original project code is licensed under the PolyForm Noncommercial License 1.0.0: free for noncommercial use, forks included. It is a source-available license, not an OSI "open source" one. Commercial use needs a separate license — see COMMERCIAL-LICENSE.md. See NOTICE for the required notice.
Third-party libraries retain their own licenses; see THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.md.