---
title: "restic"
category: "Backup, files and security"
tagline: "Fast, encrypted, deduplicated backups, and the engine behind CoreDesktop's daily backups."
source: "pacman"
package: "restic"
command: "restic"
website: "https://restic.net/"
code: "https://github.com/restic/restic"
links:
  - name: "restic documentation"
    url: "https://restic.readthedocs.io/"
---

## What it is

restic is a backup program. It saves snapshots of your files into a repository on a local disk, an SFTP server or a cloud storage service. Every snapshot is encrypted, and data that hasn't changed since the last one is stored only once, so frequent backups stay small and quick.

## Why it's here

- **Encrypted by default.** A repository can't be read without its passphrase, wherever it's stored.
- **Small and fast.** Deduplication means each daily backup only uploads what changed.
- **Reaches almost anywhere.** Through rclone it can back up to dozens of storage services, including Nextcloud.

## On CoreDesktop

restic runs CoreDesktop's daily backups of your home folder to your Nextcloud files, once you run `configure backup`. How they work, what's left out and how long backups are kept is on the [Utilities page](/utilities/#backups). To look at your backups or get files back:

```
source ~/.local/share/coredesktop/system/backup-env.sh
restic snapshots
```

See [restoring from a backup](/utilities/#restoring-from-a-backup) for the rest. restic is installed from pacman, and `update` keeps it current.