Areca Backup: Old-School File Backups That Still Get the Job Done
There are fancier tools out there. Some hook into cloud drives, some try to guess what you want. Areca doesn’t do that. It’s just a solid little app for backing up folders — quietly, reliably, and without making a mess.
What’s It About?
Areca Backup is a basic file-level backup tool. No daemons, no sync engines, no surprise features. It just makes copies of your files — optionally compressed, optionally encrypted — and puts them where you tell it.
It works best when you want full control: pick the source folders, set the rules, point to a destination (local drive, NAS, whatever), and hit “go.” It’ll show a progress bar and spit out a log at the end. That’s kind of the whole deal.
Where It Makes Sense
– Offices using shared drives or external disks for backups
– Home setups where backups still mean “copy it to the second disk”
– Admins who don’t want to build custom robocopy or rsync scripts
– People who trust zip files more than some proprietary vault format
It’s not trying to be cloud-native. And that’s honestly part of the charm.
What It’s Good At
| Feature | What It’s Like in Practice |
| Choose What to Back Up | Pick folders, apply filters — no guessing involved |
| Versioning Support | Keep multiple copies or just the changes |
| Built-In Encryption | AES available — not required, but it’s there |
| Compression | ZIP support out of the box — nothing custom |
| Restore Wizard | Click-through recovery or browse the archive directly |
| Clean Backup Logs | Helpful when something doesn’t go as planned |
| CLI Option | Good for cron jobs or Windows Task Scheduler runs |
| Portable Format | Archives are just folders or zips — no lock-in |
What You’ll Need to Use It
– Java 8+ (JRE is enough — no full SDK needed)
– Windows or Linux — both work fine
– A target location (can be a USB, NAS share, whatever’s writable)
– A few minutes to walk through the GUI and set it up
– Optionally: CLI scripts if automation is your thing
No fancy install process. Unzip, launch, configure — done.
Setup Walkthrough (the Short Version)
1. Download Areca:
Go to SourceForge: https://sourceforge.net/projects/areca/
2. Extract or install.
No surprises here. It’s just a Java app.
3. Create a backup workspace.
That’s where all your rules live.
4. Pick what to back up.
Can be a single folder or multiple, with file filters.
5. Set destination, compression, retention.
It supports ZIP compression and AES encryption if you need them.
6. Run it.
You’ll see the status, logs, and whether anything failed.
7. (Optional) Use CLI for automation:
areca_cl.sh -ws “MyBackup” -target “docs” -cmd backup
What People Actually Say
“I don’t need versioned cloud snapshots. I just want yesterday’s files safe on my USB.”
“It doesn’t do much, but what it does, it does well. That’s enough for me.”
“Haven’t lost a file in five years. I run it every weekend, and that’s it.”
Final Thought
Areca hasn’t been updated in a while — let’s get that out of the way. But the thing still works. If all you want is to back up folders, not wrestle with sync daemons or dashboards, it holds up just fine.
It’s not trendy, not modern — but it’s solid. That counts.
