<page xmlns="http://projectmallard.org/1.0/"
      type="topic" style="tip"
      id="backup-thinkabout">

  <info>
    <link type="guide" xref="files#backup"/>
    <desc>A list of folders where you can find documents, files and settings
    that you may want to back up.</desc>

    <revision pkgversion="3.4.0" date="2012-02-19" status="review"/>

    <credit type="author">
      <name>Tiffany Antopolski</name>
      <email>tiffany.antopolski@gmail.com</email>
    </credit>
    <credit type="author">
      <name>GNOME Documentation Project</name>
      <email>gnome-doc-list@gnome.org</email>
    </credit>
    <credit type="editor">
      <name>Michael Hill</name>
      <email>mdhillca@gmail.com</email>
    </credit>

    <include href="legal.xml" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude"/>
  </info>

  <title>Where can I find the files I want to back up?</title>

  <p>Deciding which files to back up, and locating them, is the most difficult
 step when attempting to perform a backup. Listed below are the most common
 locations of important files and settings that you may want to back up.</p>

<list>
 <item>
  <p>Personal files (documents, music, photos and videos)</p>
  <p xmlns:its="http://www.w3.org/2005/11/its" its:locNote="translators: xdg dirs are localised by package xdg-user-dirs and need to be translated.  You can find the correct translations for your language here: http://translationproject.org/domain/xdg-user-dirs.html">These are usually stored in your home folder (<file>/home/your_name</file>).
 They could be in subfolders such as Desktop, Documents, Pictures, Music and
 Videos.</p>
  <p>If your backup medium has sufficient space (if it's an external hard disk,
 for example), consider backing up the entire Home folder. You can find out how
 much disk space your Home folder takes up by using the
 <app>Disk Usage Analyzer</app>.</p>
 </item>

 <item>
  <p>Hidden files</p>
  <p>Any file or folder name that starts with a period (.) is hidden by default.
 To view hidden files, click <guiseq><gui>View</gui><gui>Show Hidden Files</gui></guiseq>
 or press <keyseq><key>Ctrl</key><key>H</key></keyseq>. You can copy these to a
 backup location like any other file.</p>
 </item>

 <item>
  <p>Personal settings (desktop preferences, themes, and software settings)</p>
  <p>Most applications store their settings in hidden folders inside your Home
 folder (see above for information on hidden files).</p>
  <p>Most of your application settings will be stored in the hidden folders
 <file>.config</file>, <file>.gconf</file>, <file>.gnome2</file>, and <file>.local</file>
 in your Home folder.</p>
 </item>

 <item>
  <p>System-wide settings</p>
  <p>Settings for important parts of the system aren't stored in your Home
 folder. There are a number of locations that they could be stored, but most are
 stored in the <file>/etc</file> folder. In general, you won't need to back up
 these files on a home computer. If you are running a server, however, you
 should back up the files for the services that it is running.</p>
 </item>
</list>

</page>