How to Backup Application Settings in Ubuntu using Mackup

What if you were to install the same application on multiple systems and then do the same configuration on each system to achieve an overall consistent experience? There is a way I can show you how to do this. Mackup is really an easy way to back up application settings to cloud storage. With this backup, you can automatically synchronize your application settings across all systems, saving a lot of time and effort. Mackup creates a directory under your local cloud storage directory and synchronizes files with and from there. Whenever you make configuration changes, they are instantly backed up from your cloud storage.

It can also be helpful to restore an application configuration if something is wrong with your system. You can restore the backup with a single command.

With Mackup, you can restore the configuration settings of more than 400 popular applications, including OpenSSH, Adobe Photoshop, Vim, Kdenlive, LibreOffice, Terminal, WordPress, Emacs and many more.

This article shows how to install Mackup using two different methods on Ubuntu. In the first method we will install Mackup with PIP, while in the second method; we will install it from the Snap Store.

Mackup does support the following storages:

• Dropbox
• Google Drive
• Copy
• iCloud
• Box

We will use Ubuntu 18.04 LTS for describing the procedure mentioned in this article.

Mackup Features:

Following feature are supported by Mackup:

• Backup application settings
• Restore configurations using a single command
• Sync application configuration settings across all systems
• Save backup to Cloud storage
• Works on Linux and Mac

We will use Dropbox as a cloud storage option for syncing application settings. So before proceeding towards the setup, first, install Dropbox on your system.

Installing Mackup Software

As Mackup is a Python application so we can install it using PIP. So, let’s get started with its installation.

Installing PIP

If you have not installed PIP previously, then you can install it using the following method:

We can install pip from binaries. For that, press Ctrl+Alt+T to launch the terminal and then enter the following command:

$ wget https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py

Then run the following command in Terminal:Advertisement

$ sudo python get-pip.py

After installing PIP, you can check its version by using the following command:

$ pip –version

Installing Mackup

After installing PIP, run the following command in Terminal to install Mackup:

$ pip install --upgrade mackup

Alternatively, we can also install Mackup using Linuxbrew. For that, first, we have to install Linuxbrew, then using the Linuxbrew, we will install mackup.

Run the following command in Terminal in order to install Linuxbrew:

$ sudo apt install linuxbrew-wrapper

Then run the following command in Terminal to install Mackup:

$ brew install mackup

Install Mackup via Snap

We can also install Mackup from the Snap store. Snap (Snappy) is a package management system that contains the packages knows as snaps that contains all its dependencies for running it on all popular Linux distributions. To use snaps, we need a tool that is known as Snapd.

Enable snapd

To install mackup using Snapd, make sure your system has snap support enabled. If not, we can enable it.

First, update the system by running the following command in Terminal:

$ sudo apt update

Then to enable Snapd, run the following command in Terminal:

$ sudo apt install snapd

Installing Mackup

Now after installing Snapd, we can install Mackup available in Snap store. For that, run the following command in Terminal:

$ sudo snap install mackup --classic

Now the Mackup have installed, you can use the Mackup to create backups of application settings.

Using Mackup to back up application settings

Now let’s see how we can back up the application settings using the Mackup tool.

To backup application settings in Ubuntu, open the Terminal and then type the following command:

$ mackup backup

When ask for creating a directory for storing configuration files, type yes.

It will then create a new directory Mackup in the local Dropbox folder under Your Home directory.

Basic commands you can use with Mackup:

To sync the application settings on another device, use the following command in Terminal:

$ mackup restore

To revert the synced configuration file to its original state, and delete the Mackup folder in Dropbox, use the following command in Terminal:

$ mackup uninstall

To display the list of applications supported by Mackup, use the following command in Terminal:

$ mackup list

That was all you need to know in order to backup application settings in Ubuntu. Mackup is really a good tool that can save a lot of time by allowing you to manually sync application settings across all devices.