Backup HOME with restic, exclude trash, caches and other useless data

backup.sh

#!/usr/bin/env bash

# SET ENV VARIABLES FOR YOUR USE CASE
# export RESTIC_PASSWORD=
# export RESTIC_REPOSITORY=sftp:host:/mnt/folder

# Each element is the exclusion path
excludes=(
    "$HOME/.local"    # Local configuration and application files
    "$HOME/.cache"    # Temporary cache files
    "$HOME/Downloads" # Downloads folder
    "$HOME/go"        # Go workspace directory
    "$HOME/Android"   # Android project directories and temporary files
    "$HOME/.android"  # Android system settings and cache directories
    "$HOME/.vmodules" # V lang modules directory
    "$HOME/.var"      # Variable data directory
    "$HOME/.arduino*" # Arduino tool caches and temporary files
    "$HOME/.gradle"   # Gradle caches and build data
    "$HOME/.java"     # Local Java build artifacts
    "$HOME/.thumbnails"   # Auto-generated thumbnail caches
    "$HOME/.pkg-cache"    # Package tool cache (node.js pkg) content
    '**/node_modules'     # Node.js dependencies directory
    '**/__pycache__'      # Python __pycache__ directories
    '**/.venv'            # Python virtual environment directories
    '**/venv'             # Python virtual environment directories
    "$HOME/.rbenv"        # Ruby version manager directory
    "$HOME/.gem"          # Ruby gems storage
    "$HOME/.cargo"        # Rust toolchain cache directory
    "$HOME/.rustup"       # Rustup configuration and cache
    "$HOME/.m2"           # Maven dependency cache for Java
    "$HOME/.ivy2"         # Ivy dependency cache for Java projects
    "$HOME/.composer"     # PHP Composer cache directory
    "$HOME/.stack"        # Haskell Stack working directories
    "$HOME/.cabal"        # Haskell Cabal build artifacts and caches
    "$HOME/perl5"         # Local Perl modules directory
    "$HOME/.cpanm"        # CPAN Minus cache for Perl
    "$HOME/.luarocks"     # LuaRocks cache and modules for lua
    "$HOME/.mix"          # Mix build tool cache for Elixir
    "$HOME/.sbt"          # SBT cache directory for Scala and Java
    "$HOME/.npm"          # Node package manager (npm) cache
    "$HOME/.bundle"       # Bundler cache for Ruby packages
    "$HOME/.nimble"       # Nimble modules directory for Nim
    '**/nimcache'         # Nim compiler cache directories
    '**/zig-cache'        # Zig build cache directories
    '**/zig-out'          # Zig output directories
    "$HOME/.pub-cache"    # Dart/Flutter pub cache
    "$HOME/.opam"         # opam packages for OCaml
    "$HOME/.coursier"     # Coursier cache for Scala/Java
    "$HOME/.nuget"        # .NET NuGet packages cache
    "$HOME/.dub"          # DUB cache directory for D language
    '**/nohup.out'        # All nohup output files in subdirectories
    "$HOME/.config/Code/Cache*"       # VSCode cached data
    "$HOME/.config/VSCodium/Cache*"   # VSCode cached data
    "$HOME/.config/Code - OSS/Cache*" # VSCode cached data
)

# Build the command with the excludes from the array
cmd=(restic backup "$HOME")
for ex in "${excludes[@]}"; do
    cmd+=(--exclude "$ex")
done

# Execute the command
"${cmd[@]}"


# To recover ~/bin:
#   restic restore latest --target / --include /home/maurer/bin
# select a different snapshot
#   restic snapshots

# show existing snapshots
#   restic ls latest | less