Get your files back without DirBuff.

A DirBuff backup is a restic repository in your Google Drive. Restic reads it on its own, on any computer, so your files don’t depend on DirBuff being around.

Only DirBuff may write to it.Reading is fine; writing is not. DirBuff sees only the files it made itself, so a lock, restic unlock, restic repair or restic forget run by another tool is invisible to it, and breaks its picture of the backup. Read with --no-lock where this page says to, and leave repairs to DirBuff.

Before you start

Install restic: on a Mac, brew install restic; anywhere else, see restic.net. Your backups are in Google Drive, in a folder called DirBuff Backup, with one folder inside it for each Mac.

Download the folder

Download your Mac’s folder. In drive.google.com, open DirBuff Backup and download the folder of the Mac you want. Google zips it, in several parts when it’s large.
Unzip every part into one folder, say ~/Backup.
List what’s in it.
```
restic -r ~/Backup --insecure-no-password snapshots
```
Each line is one folder at one time. Its path says where the folder was, and its tag (folder=…) names the folder’s series.

Restore one of them, by its ID:

restic -r ~/Backup --insecure-no-password restore <ID> --target ~/Restored

or a folder’s newest:

restic -r ~/Backup --insecure-no-password restore latest \
  --tag folder=<...> --target ~/Restored

If you set a password

Leave out --insecure-no-password and type the password when restic asks for it. A backup you protected with a password opens only with that password, and DirBuff can’t recover it for you.

A backup too big to download

Read it where it is, through rclone, with a remote set up for your Google account, here called gdrive:. Always add --no-lock, so restic only reads and writes nothing:

restic -r rclone:gdrive:"DirBuff Backup/<Mac>" --no-lock --insecure-no-password snapshots

restic -r rclone:gdrive:"DirBuff Backup/<Mac>" --no-lock --insecure-no-password \
  restore <ID> --target ~/Restored

Put your Mac’s name where it says <Mac>. With a password, leave out --insecure-no-password again. If you moved or renamed the folder in Drive, use its new path.

With DirBuff, it’s easier

On the Mac that made the backup, Browse Backup… on the folder’s card opens it like a folder in Finder: restore a file or folder, or drag it out. On any other Mac with DirBuff: Settings › Backup › Restore from Google Drive…, sign in to the Google account, and pick a Mac, a folder and a date.