Backup tool Windows/Linux/¿Android phone folders not system?

Android Software & Development
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Hello.

I posted in stackoverflow looking for advice. I would like to develop a free and open source tool for making folders or files backups depending on the used service. I found there are some online websites that allows you to send email with files and/or folders so this is what I posted in stackoverflow (I don’t know how to do it for windows and maybe linux so android would be one more step :smiley:)

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I found these topics talking about programming language for windows Choosing programming languages for multi platform data visualisation Programming Languages for Windows

I would like to develop a software with these features: 32/64 bits architectures Windows for my first implementation (Linux shouldn’t have graphic interface I guess)

And also these ones:

  1. Portable

  2. Graphical Interface with scroll down menu where you can select several folders or even whole hard drive

  3. Schedule that could run every 6 days for instance

  4. Encrypting data (will I need read password data input from user?)

  5. Fill web data including fields and pressing buttons in that web

  6. Probably using navigation stuff like Tor network and autovpn or both (for avoid these sites tracking)

My idea is make software open source, well I don’t know all the terms of open source license but I would like to be a tool that anyone could use personal. I wouldn’t allow it for business because I’m not sure if I could even have legal consequences just with personal of my software use for service abuse? if you are interested, I could tell you what I’m trying to do it but someone could steal my idea. Well, it doesn’t matter, if someone develops this and it’s not free, I could always develop a free version and if someone develops it that will save me work :D.

My idea is the next one. Here you will find some links that allow to send you files/folders with size limit: wetransfer 2GB

fromsmash Not size limit but delays a lot

filemail 50GB

myairbridge 20GB

dropsend 8GB

transfernow 4GB

firefox 1GB

*By the way, one of these ones only allows 3 recipients but for my program won’t matter.

  1. I’m thinking in develop a multi cloud software portable that when you open it you can select first which file transfer service use, one, two, more, all…

  2. Once you have chosen service listed by size as I posted before, the software should ask for from and to email addresses recommended that for backup use same mail address (or use different email address because those web services could suspect).

  3. Select data to backup: Here I would have to difference between all those file transfer services because some of them allow you to select folders and others only files (maybe for files write a message warning in software saying user is going to compress a folder)

  4. After select data, encrypt data is going to be transfer so here I would have to ask for a password? Should I need to copy backup data to no encrypt original data?

  5. Schedule: based on data time live in each service, automatically create a schedeuled task for each cloud service based on the days data is online, in that way I think that service https://www.filemail.com/ allows you to keep data during 7 days so I would have to schedeule backup each 6 days.

  6. Filling and pressing buttons: Once I have all user data, encrypted data (probably not original data but other copied or encrypting while I upload data), program should be able to fill input fields in those services and press button of adding files/folders and after adding all data user selected, press send file.

Is there any framework, tool I should start to learn?

Thanks in advance for your help guys!!! Sorry if it’s a noob question, I’m system administrator, my programming knowledge is limited to do some bash scripts, batch and c programs long long time ago with console interfaces like menu and no pointers except procedures referencing stuff but we don’t manage nothing about it.

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This seems like a bad idea to me. The point is to backup selected files and folders, right? Then why would you want it to use file transfer services and not storage services? Is the point just to get as much storage as possible for free or have you not heard of services like google drive, onedrive and dropbox? Or MEGA, I’m not very familiar with MEGA myself but the following post made me think of it:

It seems MEGA might be the perfect solution for you. If you choose to use the free version you will get at least 15 GB of storage and for 5 € a month you will get 400 GB. As you wanted it also encrypts the data for you.

I have some more comments in case you would still like to make this.

Why would you do it in this way instead of using the APIs of services? It will be much easier to use the APIs and it will be better optimized.

I don’t see how this would be a problem, ok, if you use the web interfaces and not the APIs then it might take some longer time, but it’s still not a big problem. Say you select two folders with your program, then it should start by making a folder on the storage service with the same name as the first folder, then it should start uploading the files from the folder one by one, then it does the same for the second folder and for eventual folders inside the two selected folders. Maybe this won’t work if you insist on using the transfer services instead of storage services, but in that case I would just want to put everything inside a zipfile anyways.

I don’t see what purpose this should do.

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@noidremained Thanks for your response, I will write my thoughts and reasons of doing this.

“It seems MEGA might be the perfect solution for you. If you choose to use the free version you will get at least 15 GB of storage and for 5 € a month you will get 400 GB. As you wanted it also encrypts the data for you.” The idea is automating a backup system, encrypted and you can have unlimited storage limit with one of the services (I tested and it’s really slow to generate download link but it’s unlimited https://www.fromsmash.com/). If you add all platform services you would get 85GB more if wouldn’t be enough unlimited backup storage between all of them which it’s not bad, it’s true that you can create as many mega accounts you want but with the tool I’m proposing you didn’t need create any account just only have email account and that’s where I would need Tor and autovpn

“I don’t see what purpose this should do.” to avoid abuse detection, I don’t believe that you every X days performs a backup those platforms are not going realize what are you doing so anonymizing ip would be interesting and you can get that with autovpn and/or tor, you will upload from different ip source addresses everytime.

“Why would you do it in this way instead of using the APIs of services? It will be much easier to use the APIs and it will be better optimized.” Why do you mean use API of services? Do those webs have a snippet code that could be called and do the upload data and fill from and to fields? (by the way one of the services needs code confirmation sent to your email account so I would discard that service, I don’t want my app read mail of any user) or do you mean do it manually? Sorry I’m not a developer, API for me it’s the concept of using snippet code like virustotal that can be invoked but I could be wrong because I have never developed or working with APIS.

Again: “This seems like a bad idea to me. The point is to backup selected files and folders, right? Then why would you want it to use file transfer services and not storage services? Is the point just to get as much storage as possible for free or have you not heard of services like google drive, onedrive and dropbox? Or MEGA, I’m not very familiar with MEGA myself but the following post made me think of it:” With dual applications, Parallelo android app and smartwatch cloud storage apps I think I will create 92 cloud storage accounts and I will try to map in my computer by unc if it’s possible (because Windows has limit of alphabet less letters you are using so max 28) but the idea is save that storage for other stuff or don’t need to configure so many accounts.

But with this tool I’m trying to develop you will avoid creating accounts in any cloud storage, you don’t need to encrypt information because information will be encrypted before travelling and you won’t even have to worry about incremental, diferencial, whatever, you just perform schedeuled full backup adding for instance backup changes to email body which you can create a rule filter in gmail for instance to save them in a folder with no expired backups (there is a service which expires in one week but the trick would be perform a schedeuled full backup in each service with data size appropiated one day before expires last backup). In short words, you could manage backups just with email account and internet connection, that’s my idea and thanks to Google Drive I could restore desktop backup because I added to OneDrive and deleted everything so with this tool wouldn’t remove folders or change paths like OneDrive or Dropbox, you just press a button load settings profile and performs backup. Probably this app should be running in background with another process checking if first process dies, start it again.

Regards and thanks for your reply!!!