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Backing up your computer is one of the most important tasks you can perform since it will help you recover from things such as drive failures, corrupt files and accidentally deleted files. If you are a Microsoft Windows user, you have most likely experienced some type of computer crash or Windows corruption so you should know how important it is to have a backup of your important information.
Windows does come with a built in file and folder backup tool called File History, but it is not the best backup solution, but it is still better than nothing. There are also many third party backup apps you can use and many of them are free. In this article, we will be showing you how to back up your files and folders for free with Perfect Backup.
To use Perfect Backup for your file and folder backups, you can simply go to their website here and download the software. They have a free and a Pro version so you can decide if you need the Pro version’s extra features or not. Once you choose your version and install it, then you are ready to start backing up your PC.
The Perfect Backup Interface
The Perfect Backup interface is fairly simple and easy to understand. At the top, you will have a toolbar section where you can do things such as create a new backup job or view the properties of an existing job. You can also open, duplicate, rename and remove existing backup jobs.
Then you have buttons to run a configured backup job or restore files from a previously run backup. There is also a button to view backup and restore history as well as log files from specific backup jobs.
On the left side of the interface, you can view any running jobs as well as see if any were cancelled or have any warnings or errors. Below that, you can view the schedules for your backup jobs if you have configured any.
The Jobs pane shows you any backup jobs that you have configured. We have two configured in our example (Pictures and Documents Backup). Then below that, you will see any events related to backing up or restoring your files.
Creating a New Backup Job with Perfect Backup
To create a new backup job, simply click on the New Job button. For the free version you can only create a file and folder backup. If you want to create a drive image or application data backup, you will need to buy the Pro version.
Once you choose your backup type, you will need to type in a name for your new backup job.
Next, you will need to decide what files and folders you will be backing up. You can choose from the default Windows folders such as Desktop, Documents and pictures etc. from the Home section. You can also browse to a specific folder on your computer, choose files from OneDrive or backup files from a network location. We will be choosing a folder in our Documents called PDF Files for this backup.
You will then need to specify where you want the backup files to be saved. You have four different options to choose from.
- Local or External Disk – Here you can choose an internal hard drive, external USB hard drive, flash drive or DVD drive.
- Network – You can backup your files to a shared network location, but you will need to know the username, password and UNC path for the share.
- FTP – If you have an FTP server, you can backup to there as well, but you will need to know its address and login information.
- Cloud – This option will let you backup to your DropBox, Google Drive or OneDrive account.
We will be backing up to our secondary hard drive in a folder called Backups\PDF Files.
You can then choose what type of backup job you want to run. You have four options here as well.
- Incremental – An incremental backup saves only the data that has changed since the last backup, reducing storage space and backup time but requiring multiple backups for a full restoration.
- Differential – A differential backup saves all data changed since the last full backup, making restoration faster while requiring more storage than incremental backups.
- Full – A full backup will back up all the files every time its run.
- Mirror (Pro version) – A mirror backup reflects the changes and keeps in destination an exact copy of the source files.
You will then have the option to compress your backup file to save space if needed. You can also choose the compression type and assign a password to the backup file if you want to encrypt it.
Perfect Backup will allow you to schedule your backup jobs on certain days of the week or month. You can also add various times for each backup job to run.
Once your backup job is configured, it will be shown with any other backup jobs you have created. You can then run your backup by clicking on Backup by the job name.
If you were to look at your backup job location, you would see a folder with the name of the job and a .pbj file which is a backup catalog or index file.
If you go into the job folder, you will see which backups are full and which are incremental, assuming you are doing incremental backups.
Restoring a Backup Job with Perfect Backup
If you need to restore some or all the files and folders from your backup job, it’s very easy to do in Perfect Backup. Once you click the Restore link for the job, you will be prompted to choose a restore location. You can restore your files to their original location or choose a new location in case you want to compare the files from the backup against the files you currently have on your computer.
If you have more than one backup for the job, you will be able to choose which one you want to restore from.
Once the restoration process is complete, you can view the log file for the restore process to see how many files were restored and if there were any errors.
Perfect Backup App Options
The Perfect Backup app has many options that determine how the program and backup jobs run. There are several tabs, each with different options that you can configure.
- General Tab – Here you can have Perfect Backup run at login for scheduled jobs, run only one job at a time, block sleep mode, configure a password for the app and set the path for temporary files.
- Logging – Here you can configure logging settings such as how many logs to keep and where to save the log files.
- Backup – These options are specific to backup jobs. You can do things such as delete a backup job if it was canceled and set retry times for failed jobs.
- Filters – Perfect Backup will exclude certain files and paths from your backup job. So if you need to edit any of the default settings or add your own directory for exclusion, you can do so from here. You can also have locked, and hidden files skipped to avoid potential backup errors.
- Report Delivery – You can configure the app to send you email reports for completed backup jobs from here.
- Proxy – If you use a proxy server on your network, you can configure it here.
If you go to the Tools menu, you can also open the built in FTP and Cloud client tools.
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