Skip to content

docs: document that borg transfer is incremental - #10212

Merged
ThomasWaldmann merged 1 commit into
borgbackup:masterfrom
ThomasWaldmann:docs-transfer-incremental-9878
Aug 25, 2026
Merged

docs: document that borg transfer is incremental#10212
ThomasWaldmann merged 1 commit into
borgbackup:masterfrom
ThomasWaldmann:docs-transfer-incremental-9878

Conversation

@ThomasWaldmann

@ThomasWaldmann ThomasWaldmann commented Aug 25, 2026

Copy link
Copy Markdown
Member

Fixes #9878.

borg transfer already is incremental, but nothing in the docs said so, so users
have to guess whether re-running it (e.g. from a cron job) is safe and cheap.

This adds an "Incremental transfer" section to the borg transfer command help
(and thus to docs/usage/transfer.rst.inc) covering:

  • archive level: archives already present in the destination repo are skipped
    (checked by name+timestamp and by name+id), printing
    archive is already present in destination repo, skipping.
  • chunk level: for archives that do get copied, only chunks not yet present in
    the destination are read from the source and stored.
  • the cron / multiple-invocations-with--a-filters pattern from the issue.
  • interrupting a transfer is safe: an archive only shows up in the destination
    after it was copied completely, and the chunks stored so far are reused on the
    next run - unless borg compact runs on the destination in between.
  • transfer never deletes: prune/compact the destination repo separately.

Also adds a pointer from the related FAQ entry ("Can I copy or synchronize my
repo to another location?") to borg transfer.

docs/usage/transfer.rst.inc was regenerated with scripts/make.py build_usage
(only that one file changed); man pages were not regenerated, that is done at
release time.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

Add an "Incremental transfer" section to the transfer command help:
transfer skips archives that are already present in the destination
repo (name+timestamp or name+id) and only stores chunks the destination
does not have yet, so it can be run repeatedly (e.g. from a cron job).

Also mention that interrupting a transfer is safe, that transfer never
deletes anything in the destination repo, and add a pointer from the
related FAQ entry.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
@ThomasWaldmann
ThomasWaldmann merged commit 13a199e into borgbackup:master Aug 25, 2026
18 checks passed
@ThomasWaldmann
ThomasWaldmann deleted the docs-transfer-incremental-9878 branch August 25, 2026 18:59
@codecov

codecov Bot commented Aug 25, 2026

Copy link
Copy Markdown

Codecov Report

✅ All modified and coverable lines are covered by tests.
✅ Project coverage is 87.25%. Comparing base (d7b1cd5) to head (1dc0525).
⚠️ Report is 3 commits behind head on master.
✅ All tests successful. No failed tests found.

Additional details and impacted files
@@           Coverage Diff           @@
##           master   #10212   +/-   ##
=======================================
  Coverage   87.25%   87.25%           
=======================================
  Files         102      102           
  Lines       18440    18440           
  Branches     2834     2834           
=======================================
  Hits        16090    16090           
  Misses       1643     1643           
  Partials      707      707           

☔ View full report in Codecov by Harness.
📢 Have feedback on the report? Share it here.

Sign up for free to join this conversation on GitHub. Already have an account? Sign in to comment

Labels

None yet

Projects

None yet

Development

Successfully merging this pull request may close these issues.

borg2: transfer - is it incremental?

1 participant