feature request: Global Exclusions List

[GiacomoGo]

I've recently switched from Backup 11 (can't recall how many happy and safe years with that product : ) to Reflector.
As I tune my new backup tasks, mainly to eliminate unimportant errors, I start to think that this would be much easier if there were a general application setting like "global exclusions". What do others think? A useful feature, or some basic misunderstanding by me?

Here are some examples of errors, related to directories and files that I am 99.9% certain I would never need from a file backup. Sure, I have them in my disk-image backups - much different beasts. But for my file backups, Windows and apps are gonna do what they're gonna do on a pc, and I would never retrieve dirs/files like these from backups:

• ERR date/time An error occurred while copying "C:\Users\...\AppData\LocalLow\Microsoft\CryptnetUrlCache\MetaData\57C8EDB95DF3F0AD4EE2DC2B8CFD4157" to "\\backup-path\Users\...\AppData\LocalLow\Microsoft\CryptnetUrlCache\MetaData\57C8EDB95DF3F0AD4EE2DC2B8CFD4157": Access is denied

• ERR date/time An error occurred while checking for mirror changes: (5) Access is denied: [\\backup-path\Users\...\AppData\Local\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\profile-ID\startupCache\scriptCache-child-current.bin]

In addition to errors related to such directories and files (that I don't need in backups), Windows, MS apps like Office, and applications in general today seem incredibly bloated. And they bloat directories that do occasionally have a file that I want to back up, like AppData, ProgramData.

I use jam-soft's TreeSize to find bloated directories. When I find them, I'd like to add them to a global exclusion list, and henceforth have much faster and smaller backups. Sure, drive space is relatively cheap these days. But bloat, to me, is exceptionally obnoxious - especially when I'm trying to protect and later find a meaningful file or configuration - and I don't need to slow my pc and network down to backup up endless bloat.

So that's my feature request and use case, and I'm happy to see any opinion or suggestion.

And once we have that, we can crowdsource anti-bloat exclusion lists, so we're not all fumbling to find these on our own : )

[cobian]

[GiacomoGo]

Thanks for the thumbs-up. The more I think about this, the more I like it : )

Just a bit of empirical follow-up for a Win11 pc, however anecdotal : )
After tuning my tasks over the past week, mainly to avoid bloat, my cumulative backup to NAS has gone from this:

• Backed up files: 171444.

• Time elapsed: 2 hours, 47 minutes, 2 seconds.

to

• Backed up files: 1298.

• Time elapsed: 0 hours, 34 minutes, 28 seconds.

And for a similar mirror task:

• Backed up files: 171571.

• Time elapsed: 2 hours, 53 minutes, 3 seconds.

to

• Backed up files: 781.

• Time elapsed: 0 hours, 20 minutes, 8 seconds.

The main bloat offenders knock themselves out primarily in the user's AppData folder, and primarily with unimportant files: Microsoft (Edge is insane, and I don't even use it) and Firefox. If I used Google, the savings would probably be even more pronounced.

[cobian]

Just add those directyories to the exclusion list if the content is unimportant.