Areca Backup

Areca Backup is a file-level backup program for Windows and Linux aimed at administrators and power users who want to decide exactly which files are saved, where they go and how many versions are kept. The Areca Backup download is free and open source under GPL-2.0. The original author, Olivier Petrucci, stopped at version 7.5 in 2015; development continues in a fork maintained by the developer known as bugtamer on SourceForge and GitHub, which is the version described here.

Areca is not an imaging tool and does not run as a background service with its own scheduler. It is a Java application with a GUI and a command-line interface: you define “targets” (one backup job each) in the GUI, then run them by hand or from Task Scheduler or cron. Its strengths are transparent archives, incremental and delta modes, AES encryption and the ability to restore any file as it was on a given date.

Areca Backup at a glance

What it does

• Full, incremental and differential backups, plus a delta mode that stores only the changed parts of modified files.
• Three storage styles: a new archive per run, delta archives, or a single continuously updated “image” archive.
• Stores data as plain directories or Zip/Zip64 archives, with optional AES-128 or AES-256 encryption.
• Destinations: local disks, SSD/NVMe, USB drives, network shares, and FTP, FTPS or SFTP servers.
• File filters by extension, folder, regular expression, size, date and status, combined with AND/OR/NOT logic.
• As-of-date recovery, archive browsing, file version history and merging of old archives to save space.
• Pre- and post-backup scripts, backup reports to disk or by email, and backup simulation.
• On Linux, stores permissions, symbolic links, named pipes, ACLs and extended attributes.

How sysadmins use it

Nightly incremental backup of a data folder to a NAS

1. In the GUI, create a target. Add the source folders, and set the destination to a UNC path or mapped share on the NAS.
2. Choose Zip64 compression and, if the NAS is shared, AES-256 encryption. Store the key in your password manager: without it the archives cannot be read.
3. Add filters to skip temporary files (for example *.tmp and cache folders).
4. Run a simulation first, then the first full backup from the GUI.
5. Schedule the incremental run with the command-line client in Windows Task Scheduler:

areca_cl.exe backup -config "D:arecaworkspacenas-data.bcfg"
areca_cl.exe backup -config "D:arecaworkspacenas-data.bcfg" -f

The first line runs the default (incremental) backup; adding -f forces a full backup, -d a differential one and -c a consistency check after the run. Point -config at the target file that the GUI saved in your workspace.

Restore files as they were on a specific date

1. Open the target in the GUI and pick the archive for the date you need, or use the as-of-date recovery option.
2. Browse the archive contents, select the files or folders and recover them to an alternate location rather than over live data.
3. For scripted restores the documented CLI form is:

recover -config <config file> -target <target id> -destination <folder> -date <YYYY-MM-DD> [-c]

Keep the archive count under control

1. After a few months of incrementals, merge older archives into one from the GUI (or with the CLI merge command).
2. Decide whether deleted files should be kept in the merged archive; the CLI uses -k to keep them.
3. Run a check on the target afterwards to verify archive integrity.

Install and first run

There is no installer: unpack the archive for your platform and run areca.exe (Windows) or areca.sh (Linux) for the GUI. Command-line launchers are included in the same package.

• Java: the fork runs on Java 8 or newer; LTS releases (8, 11, 17, 21) are recommended. Areca uses JAVA_HOME, or an embedded runtime if you unpack a JRE or JDK into an areca/jre or areca/jdk folder, which makes a self-contained copy easy.
• Permissions: run scheduled jobs under an account that can read every source file and write to the destination; on Linux, back up system paths as root if you need ownership and ACLs restored.
• Locked files: Windows files held open by other programs cannot be copied. Areca has a locked-file filter to skip them cleanly (fixed in 8.2.6 after a crash in 8.2.5); stop the application or export its data first if you need those files.
• Scheduling: Areca has no scheduler of its own; use Task Scheduler or cron, and make the task run whether or not a user is logged on.
• Old domain: areca-backup.org is no longer the official site; documentation for the fork lives in its GitHub repository and on SourceForge.

Limitations

• File-level only: no disk images, bare-metal restore or application-aware backups for databases and Exchange.
• No Volume Shadow Copy integration in the core program, so open files are a problem.
• No cloud object storage targets such as S3; remote options are network shares and FTP/FTPS/SFTP.
• macOS is not an officially supported platform.
• The fork is maintained by one developer, and the project website has had availability problems.
• The interface is functional but dated, and settings such as delta mode need reading before use.

Areca Backup vs alternatives

FAQ

Is Areca Backup free?

Yes. It is free and open source under GPL-2.0, with no paid edition.

Is Areca Backup still maintained?

The original project ended with 7.5 in 2015. The bugtamer fork is active: 8.2.6 was released in June 2026.

Is there a portable version of Areca Backup?

Areca is distributed as an archive that runs from its folder without installation. Add an embedded JRE in the jre subfolder and it does not depend on a system-wide Java either.

Does Areca Backup run on Linux?

Yes. Linux and Windows are the supported platforms, and on Linux it can also store permissions, ACLs and extended attributes.

Is Areca Backup available for Mac?

No official macOS build is published. Use Time Machine or another macOS-native backup tool instead.

Where is the Areca Backup source code?

The fork’s source and user documentation are on GitHub under the bugtamer/areca-backup repository; release files are published on SourceForge.

Can Areca back up to an SFTP server?

Yes. FTP, FTPS and SFTP are supported destinations alongside local and network drives.

Last checked against official sources: 1 October 2026 (developer website: areca-backup.sourceforge.io). Versions and licence terms change — confirm on the developer's site before deploying in production.