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    Supported Backup Data
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      Supported Backup Data

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        Article Summary

        This article answers the question, "What does Backblaze back up?" Backblaze backs up all of your data across all of the user profiles that are on your computer as soon as you install the client.

        Backblaze believes that you do not need to worry whether you selected all of the files that you care about, put any files in a different location on your computer, or added new files that may not be included in your online backup. Therefore, Backblaze automatically selects all of your data.

        File Size

        There is no limit to the file sizes that you can back up. You can lower the default value of "No Limit" in your exclusion settings. Click here for Mac instructions. Click here for Windows instructions.

        Photos, iPhoto, Aperture, and Lightroom use library bundles that Backblaze backs up at any size.

        View Files

        At any time, you can sign in to your Backblaze account and click View/Restore Files in the Computer Backup menu.

        Connected Drives

        Backblaze backs up USB and Firewire hard drives and internal drives that are connected at the time of the install or added later in settings.

        Organization

        Backblaze organizes your online backup around the concept of "top-level drives." When you install the Backblaze client on your computer, it scans for any permanently attached hard drives (not network drives or removable media like CDs or flash drives) to back up. To add or remove an external hard drive, click here.

        Archived Files

        Backblaze Computer Backup is designed to protect the files that you care about. Backblaze retains a remote backup of any file that exists on your computer. Additionally, Backblaze retains multiple versions of that file for up to 30 days by default. However, Backblaze Computer Backup is not designed as an additional storage system. Therefore, you should not upload your external hard drive to Backblaze Computer Backup and then delete the data off your drive because those files are deleted from the Backblaze servers as well. 

        Additionally, Backblaze must continue running on your computer to perform self-maintenance and maintain the correct mirror copy of your files in the Backblaze data center on an ongoing basis. If, for any reason, the Backblaze data center does not hear from your computer after six months, the backup copy of your data may be removed from the data center and your account is subject to cancellation.

        Backblaze has an extended version history feature that allows you to bypass the 30-day limit. You can choose one year of retention or forever. For more information, see Version History.

        Exclusions

        To save your bandwidth and data center disk space, Backblaze does not back up your operating system, application files, empty folders or directories, or temporary internet files that are transient. You can see these exclusions by navigating to the Backblaze control panel, clicking Settings, and selecting the Exclusions tab. Some of these excluded files include: ISO (Disk Images), VMC VHD VMSN (Virtual Drives), SYS (System Configuration & Drivers), and EXE (Application Files). You can remove all of these file types from this area. For example, to back up an ISO, remove .iso from the list.

        Backblaze also does not include backup products like Time Machine and Retrospect RDB. Other excluded files include podcasts in iTunes, thumbnails, and caches from iPhoto, Aperture, or Lightroom. Additionally, aliases, Libraries, Reparse Points, Shortcuts, Symlinks, and folders that are shared from another computer are not included in the backup.

        Note
        Exclusions apply to all drives, meaning that all of the folders and files with the same name are excluded across all drives. For example, since C:\Windows\ is excluded, then G:\Windows\ is also excluded.

        Network Drives and NAS

        Backblaze does not currently back up network-mounted drives, NAS drives, remotely mounted computers or volumes, and shared volumes.

        However, you can back up these drives using Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage.

        Time Machine Drives

        To avoid duplicating data, Backblaze does not back up any drive that contains Time Machine data.

        If you want to back up a Time Machine drive to Backblaze, you have two options:


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