Can Borg show me which files/dirs are subject for next backup prior to the actual backup?

[jose1711]

Have you checked borgbackup docs, FAQ, and open Github issues?

Yes

Is this a BUG / ISSUE report or a QUESTION?

Question

Is it possible for borg to show which files has been added/removed/modified since last backup? Dry-run lists everything so that does not help and creating and deleting the archive afterwards may be too expensive if using remote system.

[ThomasWaldmann]

--dry-run, as it is implemented now, only shows the filenames (not whether the file was modified or not). this is because the intention behind it was primarily to check whether roots/includes/excludes work as expected.

theoretically, this could be extended to (optionally) run a bit more of the code (which borg create uses without --dry-run), but it would also get slower due to that, esp. on network filesystems, as it would open/stat all the files. if you do not have a lot or big changed files, the --dry-run then might have similar speed as a normal run.

[clementmoulin]

I think having this "feature" would be nice.

I have also noticed - and think it's kind of "issue" - that using --dry-run and --filter AME results in no output. Of course now I know that --dry-run is not opening/stating files, this is "logic", but I think borg should produce a warning similar to the use of --dry-run and --stats in conjunction.

[c0d3z3r0]

--dry-run, as it is implemented now, only shows the filenames (not whether the file was modified or not). this is because the intention behind it was primarily to check whether roots/includes/excludes work as expected.

Do you mean explicitly filenames only, so directories should not be shown?

[ThomasWaldmann]

@c0d3z3r0 no, i meant it in a general sense of any fs object's name.

IIRC there were small "cosmetic" bugs though, so depending on the borg version it maybe has not (yet) shown directory names.