How to quickly back up your Linux home folder using Kbackup
The easiest way to back up your Linux home folder is with Kbackup, a user-friendly tool that handles the entire process in minutes. Your home folder holds all of your music files, documents, videos, configuration files, and even video game saves — so keeping a reliable backup is essential.
In the past, on AddictiveTips, we’ve gone over ways of creating backups. However, none of the apps we’ve covered are quite as user-friendly and as fast as Kbackup. With Kbackup, you can easily back up your Linux home folder in a matter of minutes! Here’s how to do it.
Installing Kbackup on Linux
The Kbackup application needs to be installed on your Linux PC before using it to create a backup of your home folder. To install the Kbackup application on your Linux PC, start by opening a terminal window on the Linux desktop.
After opening up a Linux terminal window on the desktop, follow along with the installation instructions outlined below that corresponds with the Linux operating system you are currently using.
Ubuntu
On Ubuntu, the Kbackup tool can quickly be installed on your Linux PC by using the Apt command below.
sudo apt install kbackup
Debian
If you’re on Debian, you’ll be able to get the Kbackup tool up and running using the Apt-get command below.
sudo apt-get install kbackup
Arch Linux
On Arch Linux, you’ll be able to get Kbackup working on your system by making use of the following Pacman command below in a terminal window.
sudo pacman -S kbackup
Fedora
Are you a Fedora Linux user? Are you looking to get Kbackup working on your Fedora system? Do it using the following Dnf command below in a terminal window.
sudo dnf install kbackup
OpenSUSE
In OpenSUSE Linux, you will be able to set up the Kbackup utility by making use of the Zypper installation command below.
sudo zypper install kbackup
Generic Linux
The Kbackup program is available on a wide variety of Linux distributions. If you’d like to get it working on your system and can’t seem to figure it out, head over to the Kbackup website to learn more.
Before you back up: size, destination, and exclusions
Before you start any home folder backup, it is worth spending a minute checking a few things so you do not run into problems mid-way through.
Check how large your home folder is. Run the following command in a terminal, replacing youruser with your actual username:
du -sh /home/youruser
This gives you a quick total so you can confirm your external drive or backup destination actually has enough free space before you begin.
Choose the right destination filesystem. If you are using a direct file-copy method like rsync (covered below), the safest destination is a drive formatted with a Linux filesystem such as ext4. A Linux filesystem preserves file permissions, ownership, symlinks, and timestamps correctly. FAT32 and exFAT drives do not support these attributes, which can cause problems if you ever need to restore the backup to a working home directory. If you are using Kbackup, this matters less because Kbackup stores everything in a tar archive that carries the metadata internally.
Consider what to exclude. Not everything in your home folder is worth backing up. Two folders that are safe to skip and can save significant space are:
- .cache — This folder holds temporary cached data for apps and browsers. It is rebuilt automatically and contains no personal files you cannot recreate.
- lost+found — This is a filesystem recovery folder that only appears if your drive had errors. It has no user data worth preserving in a backup.
If you are using Kbackup, it will include both of these folders unless you manually deselect them in the folder tree before starting the backup. Expand your username folder in the Kbackup sidebar, find .cache in the list, and uncheck it to exclude it from the backup.
How to Back Up Your Linux Home Folder with Kbackup
Before diving into the steps, it helps to understand exactly what a home folder backup covers — and what it does not.
- A /home backup includes all of your personal files plus most per-user application settings, which are stored in hidden dotfiles and folders inside your home directory (for example, .config, .local, and .bashrc).
- It does not back up the operating system, installed packages, or system-wide configuration stored in directories like /etc.
- If you are migrating to a new machine or want full recovery capability, you may also want separate backups of /etc (system configuration), /var (application data and logs), /usr/local (locally installed software), and /root (the root user’s home folder) where relevant.
Keep in mind that Kbackup in this workflow is backing up only your selected user folder — not the whole machine.
To back up your Linux home folder, start by launching the Kbackup program on your Linux desktop. To do that, you can search for “kbackup” in the app menu. Or, press Alt + F2 and write “kbackup” in the quick-launch window to open it.
Once the Kbackup application is open on the Linux desktop, follow along with the step-by-step instructions outlined below to create your home backup.
Step 1: Find a USB external hard drive or a large USB flash drive or SD card to use as your backup destination. You will need an external storage device for this backup because the home folder tends to be quite large.
When you’ve got your storage device, plug it into the computer. Then, launch the Linux file manager and access it via the mounting menu. It is critical that the external USB storage device is mounted, as Kbackup will save to it directly.
Step 2: In the Kbackup app, look to the sidebar. In the sidebar, you’ll see a / folder, with a down arrow next to it. Hit the down arrow to reveal all sub-folders in there. Then, look through the sub-folder list for “home”.
Step 3: Once you’ve found the “home” sub-folder, click on the arrow next to it. You should see another sub-folder with your username. From here, click on the empty box next to the username folder to indicate you wish to back this folder up.
Step 4: With your username folder added to Kbackup, make your way to the “Target” area in Kbackup. In the “Target” area, you will see the “Folder” section.
Click on the folder icon next to “Folder.” This will bring up a browser window. From here, use the browser window to locate your external USB backup device and select it as the destination where Kbackup will save the backup.
Step 5: After setting the backup location in Kbackup, find the “Start Backup” button at the top of Kbackup, and select it to start the backup process.
From here, Kbackup will back up absolutely everything in your home directory, including hidden files and configuration data. Keep in mind that this process could take quite a long time, especially if you have a large number of files stored in your home directory.
When the backup is complete, you will see a notification appear in Kbackup letting you know the backup is done. From here, close the app.
Alternative methods to back up a Linux home folder
Kbackup is a great graphical option, but many Linux users prefer to back up their home folder directly from the terminal using rsync or tar. Both are built into virtually every Linux distribution and give you full control over the process. Here is when to use each one.
- Use rsync if you plan to run backups repeatedly to the same destination. rsync only copies files that have changed since the last backup, so after the first run, subsequent backups are much faster.
- Use tar if you want a single portable archive file — for example, to store on a USB drive, attach to cloud storage, or move to a new machine in one transfer.
Back up with rsync
Replace youruser with your actual username and /mnt/backup/youruser/ with the path to your backup destination:
sudo rsync -a --info=progress2 --exclude=".cache" --exclude="lost+found" /home/youruser/ /mnt/backup/youruser/
The -a flag (archive mode) preserves permissions, ownership, symlinks, and timestamps. The –exclude flags skip the cache and lost+found folders to keep the backup lean. The –info=progress2 flag shows overall transfer progress in the terminal.
To restore from an rsync backup, run:
sudo rsync -a --info=progress2 /mnt/backup/youruser/ /home/youruser/
Back up with tar
The following command creates a compressed archive of your home folder and names it with today’s date automatically:
tar -czf ~/home-backup-$(date +%Y%m%d).tar.gz -C /home youruser
To restore from a tar archive, run:
sudo tar -xzf /path/to/home-backup-YYYYMMDD.tar.gz -C /home
Replace YYYYMMDD with the actual date in the filename. The -C /home flag tells tar to extract directly into /home, which places your files back at /home/youruser/ where they belong.
Restore Your Linux Home Folder Backup
Restoring a home folder backup correctly matters more than most guides suggest. Simply extracting files to a random folder will not give you a working home directory — especially for hidden config files and when migrating to a new machine. Follow these steps for a reliable restore.
Step 1: Log out or use a live session if possible. Files inside your home folder can change while you are actively logged in, which can cause a corrupt or incomplete restore. Ideally, boot from a Linux live USB or log out of your desktop session entirely before restoring. If you are restoring to a fresh system, this is not a concern.
Step 2: Plug in your external USB drive. Open a terminal and identify where your drive is mounted, typically something like /media/youruser/drivename.
Step 3: Inspect the archive structure before extracting. Before extracting, check whether the tar archive contains the full path home/username/… or just the contents of the home folder. Run:
tar -tzf /path/to/your-backup.tar.gz | head -20
This lists the first 20 entries so you can see the path structure inside the archive and choose the correct extraction command.
Step 4: Extract to the correct location. If the archive contains paths starting with home/username/, extract to the root of the filesystem:
sudo tar -xzf /path/to/your-backup.tar.gz -C /
If the archive contains only the contents of the home folder (no leading home/username/ path), extract directly into your home directory:
sudo tar -xzf /path/to/your-backup.tar.gz -C /home/youruser/
Do not extract to an arbitrary folder — the files must land at their intended paths for desktop and application settings to work correctly.
Step 5: Verify ownership and permissions. After extracting, confirm that all restored files are owned by the correct user. This is especially important if you are restoring to a different machine where the user account may have a different UID or GID. Fix ownership with:
sudo chown -R username:username /home/username
Replace username with your actual username.
Step 6: Log back in. Once the restore is complete, log back into your desktop session. Your desktop environment and applications will reload your restored settings cleanly on first launch.
