Scheduled Backups
The schedule tab is used to configure the automatic creation of backups.
Once enabled a schedule can be chosen between Hourly, Daily, Weekly and Monthly backups. The status display at the top will always indicate the next time a backup is scheduled to be run.
When the appropriate time has elapsed a backup will automatically start in the background. When using an external drive, you will be prompted to insert it if it's not available at the time. The backup will then start as soon as the drive is connected.
Scheduled backups use a lightweight background process called the Monitor. The Monitor process runs in the background when Pika Backup is closed and regularly checks if the conditions are met to start a backup.
Cleanup old Archives
The schedule can also be configured to automatically remove old archives. Once enabled, choose the desired preset / customize the amount of backups that should be kept. Then press Save Configuration.
Keep Hourly, Keep Daily and Keep Weekly can only be configured to a minimum of at least one backup. This is due to a technical limitation of the removal algorithm.
Troubleshooting
Pika Backup uses the xdg-desktop-portal Background Portal to configure the Monitor process to run in the background. Some distributions misconfigure xdg-desktop-portal or don't enable the Background Portal. This will then cause an error when enabling scheduled backups. We have tested the following distributions for correct behavior regarding background portals in their stock configuration:
Debian
Fedora
If you encounter issues with enabling scheduled backups and you are using a different distribution, please report an issue in your distribution issue tracker.
GNOME Shell will display Pika Backup as a running background app whenever scheduled backups are configured. This doesn't mean the entire app is running in the background but only the Monitor process which only uses very few resources.