Making backups of important folders should become a routine for everyone, simple as that. Back up to another internal drive, back up to a flash disk, back up to an external drive, or back up to an remote source, it doesn’t really matter as long as you make the effort to backup on a regular basis.

Linux users will be familiar with the powerful rsync command line file and directory synchronization tool, but if you are an Ubuntu user then chances are you’re not particularly keen on messing about on the command line. So enter a great little alternative called Grsync, which is basically a graphic user interface for rsync!

In a nutshell, Grsync allows you to synchronize folders, files and make backups, while utilizing the power of the tried and tested rsync in the background to do the actual heavy lifting.

It costs nothing and is opensource. It can be effectively used to synchronize local directories and it supports remote targets as well (even though it doesn’t support browsing the remote folder). Grsync is available on fair number of Linux flavors (like Ubuntu), Windows and Mac OS X.

Note that you do need the rsync command line tool installed on your system in order for Grsync to work, but don’t fret too much about that as nowadays most distros come with it preinstalled.

Feature list taken from the project site: (To be honest, it’s not a very well written list, but oh well)

  • Most commonly used rsync options available, additional options may be specified by command line switches
  • Saves multiple settings with customized names (no limit on number of “sessions”)
  • Can do simulation or normal execution
  • Captures and prints rsync output nicely on a own window and log to a file
  • Parses rsync output to display progress bars and other information
  • Highlights errors and show them on a separate window, for better and faster control over rsync runs
  • Can pause rsync execution
  • A good number of translations available
  • Can run custom commands before (and stop in case of failure) and after rsync
  • Shell script for batch, crontab use etc. provided (grsync-batch)
  • Can import and export sessions on file; i.e. share your settings with people!
  • Can minimize to system tray (status icon)
  • Can run specific sessions with superuser privileges
  • Rsync backup made easy!
  • Needs rsync installed on the system (command line tool only, no need for server-side daemon) and GTK
  • Available for free and with sources!
  • Works on many linux distributions (including Nokia Maemo), Mac OS X and windows!

To install, simply search for grsync in the Ubuntu Software Center and install from there.

Nifty.

Related Link: http://www.opbyte.it/grsync/