KopiaUI is the official graphical desktop app for Kopia, the open-source backup tool. It lets you build encrypted, deduplicated snapshot repositories, schedule automatic backups, set retention policies, and restore files without typing commands.
KopiaUI is the official desktop application for Kopia, the open-source backup engine that stores data as encrypted, incremental snapshots. Instead of typing commands, you point the app at folders you care about, connect a repository, and let it handle the rest. Every snapshot is deduplicated before it leaves your machine, so only changed file blocks travel to storage. The typical workflow is simple: create or connect a repository, define a policy that sets the backup schedule, compression, and retention window, then run snapshots on demand or automatically. When something goes wrong, KopiaUI lets you browse past snapshots and restore whole folders or single files to any location you choose.
KopiaUI separates the backup engine from the storage layer, so the same app can write snapshots to local drives, network shares, SFTP servers, WebDAV endpoints, or cloud buckets without changing how you work. You can connect several storage destinations, back up multiple machines into one repository, and share deduplicated data between them. Policies sit at the centre of the design: they control which paths are snapshot-eligible, what gets excluded, when snapshots run, how long they are kept, and whether compression is applied. Anyone comparing standalone command-line tools will find a natural counterpart in Restic, while KopiaUI appeals to users who prefer a visual interface for schedules, retention, and restores. The application also runs automatic repository maintenance to keep performance steady.
The main benefit of KopiaUI is that it makes serious, verifiable backup practice practical for people who do not live in a terminal. You get the full strength of Kopia's content-addressable snapshot engine behind ordinary buttons: encryption happens locally with keys only you hold, and deduplication means repeated documents and media libraries consume repository space once rather than many times. Scheduling and retention policies replace fragile manual routines, so a laptop can be protected every few hours without anyone remembering to run a job. Restoring is equally accessible. You can mount a snapshot as a browsable local drive, pull a single overwritten document out of a week-old snapshot, or rebuild an entire directory tree onto a clean disk. Built-in consistency checking and automatic maintenance show whether archives still read back correctly, which matters more than the original copy in most recovery situations.
KopiaUI walks you through creating or connecting a repository, choosing a storage backend, and setting the password that protects everything stored inside. Repositories hold the full snapshot history for the folders you select, and the app keeps the connection details so later snapshots and restores need no reconfiguration.
Every snapshot is encrypted on your machine before it is uploaded, and file content is split into chunks so repeated data is stored only once. KopiaUI shows the resulting repository size and compression gains, which helps you judge whether a backup plan fits the storage you are paying for.
Policies let you decide how often each path is snapshotted, and KopiaUI runs those jobs in the background on the schedule you set. You do not have to remember manual runs, and each snapshot remains an independent point-in-time record that you can restore from later.
Retention rules determine how long snapshots survive before they expire, so daily copies can roll off while monthly ones stay for years. Configuring this in KopiaUI keeps repository growth predictable and prevents the archive from filling up with redundant history.
KopiaUI lists your snapshots by date and lets you open one to inspect its contents. From there you can copy a single file back to its original path, restore a folder to a different drive, or compare what existed at an earlier time.
Compression can be enabled per policy, and KopiaUI applies it to data before upload, saving both transfer time and repository capacity. Combined with chunk-level deduplication, this keeps multi-version backups of documents, code, and media from multiplying your storage costs.
Repositories need periodic housekeeping, and KopiaUI schedules maintenance automatically. You can also run consistency checks that read back stored data to confirm nothing has decayed, plus error-correction support that guards against silent corruption from failing hardware.
Local disks, network shares, SFTP and WebDAV servers, Amazon S3, Backblaze B2, Google Cloud Storage, and Azure Blob Storage are all reachable from the same interface. KopiaUI keeps several destinations configured side by side, so you can keep copies in more than one place.
KopiaUI is the official graphical interface for Kopia and ships with the same command-line binary. The interface covers the tasks most people need: creating and connecting repositories, setting policies, running snapshots, browsing history, and restoring data. Advanced options that exist only in the CLI remain available through that included binary, so nothing is locked away.
Repositories can live on local or external drives, network shares, SFTP and WebDAV servers, Amazon S3 and S3-compatible services, Backblaze B2, Google Cloud Storage, and Azure Blob Storage. Rclone-based remotes extend this to services such as Dropbox, OneDrive, and Google Drive. You choose the destination and pay the storage provider directly.
Yes. Snapshot history is browsable, so you can open any recorded point in time and pull out a single document, a folder, or a complete directory tree. KopiaUI can also mount a snapshot so it appears as a local drive, which is convenient when you want to search through older versions before deciding what to restore.
The password protects the encryption keys, and it is never sent anywhere. Without it, the contents of the repository cannot be decrypted, and neither the file data nor the stored file names can be read. There is no recovery mechanism, so keep the password in a safe place such as a password manager before you rely on the backups.
Both interfaces share the same repositories and configuration, so you can create a snapshot in the desktop app and list it from a terminal, or do the reverse. That makes it straightforward to script unusual tasks while keeping day-to-day backups pointing and clicking.
Consistency checks read data back from the repository and verify that hashes match what was originally written, and they can run at whatever interval you prefer. Automatic maintenance also removes unreferenced data and keeps repository performance stable as the history grows.
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