Timeshift allows you to create incremental backups that produce exact images of your system at a specific point in time. You can use them to restore your system to the exact state that it was in when the backup was made. Since they’re incremental, they don’t take nearly as much hard drive space to store. In this post we show you how to get started with Timeshift on your own desktop.
Why Use Timeshift
First off, Timeshift isn’t primarily meant for servers (though it does have great command line usability). It’s designed with desktops in mind, and it shines there. There are plenty of reasons that you’d want to use Timeshift on a desktop Linux system. It lets you roll back from bad updates, security issues, and just about anything else that can go wrong with your system, even the mistakes that you make yourself. If you’re worried about security, you might want to check out the best Linux-Libre distributions for improved protection. Timeshift also allows you to create backups to external and networked hard drives. That means that it can service backups even when the hardware it’s installed on fails. There’s even an extra feature that makes it better than Windows’ System Restore: Timeshift can be set to run at just about any time interval automatically. You can have your system back itself up every night, week, or month, and never worry that your latest backup is outdated.
How to Install Timeshift
Timeshift is now available in most Linux repositories and can be installed directly from your package manager. Here are a few examples of the installation in major Linux distros:
Debian/Ubuntu-based Distributions
Arch Linux
Timeshift is available in the Arch User Repository (AUR). You will need an AUR helper to access this special repository. In this example, we used Yay to install Timeshift:
Fedora
Void Linux
Getting Started with the GUI
Find the Timeshift application in your system like you would any other. In most desktop environments, simply press the Super (Win) key and type its name in the search bar then press Enter. Click on Timeshift to start the setup.
Creating a Backup
Creating a backup of your system is super easy, and you can make one right after you set up Timeshift. This gives your system a starting point.
How to Restore a Backup
You’ve backed up your system files, and now it’s time to restore them. Timeshift is capable of restoring in a variety of conditions, which we will walk you through:
If You Can Reach Your Desktop
If You Can’t Boot to Desktop But Still Have Access the Login Screen
In this circumstance, your display manager was able to open meaning that you are technically booted into the system, but your desktop environment failed to load properly. To access Timeshift, we’ll need to access a terminal.
If You Can’t Boot At All
For this process, you’ll need a live USB/DVD of a Linux distro to boot into. You can use a software like balenaEtcher to create one. All screenshots by Miguel Leiva-Gomez and Nick Congleton. To make this as simple as possible without going on a long conversation about root shell modification and its security implications, an application opened with elevated privileges will always use the root shell, which is almost always the vanilla default theme your desktop environment comes with.
