pibackup
Portable live backup tool for Raspberry Pi with GUI, Zstandard compression, auto-shrinking (resize2fs) and flexible restore.
- Active · last change 9-27-2026
- ★ 7 on GitHub
README
🚀 pibackup – Raspberry Pi Backup, Restore & Cloning Tool
Fast, intelligent backup, restore and cloning for Raspberry Pi storage devices.
pibackup is a portable 64-bit Linux application with a simple graphical user interface, designed for Raspberry Pi systems.
It creates compressed backup images, restores existing images, and intelligently clones SD cards, SSDs and HDDs.
Unlike many SD card imaging tools, pibackup supports both small SD cards and large storage devices while automatically adapting partition layouts during restore and cloning.
✨ Features
- 🖥️ Simple graphical user interface (GUI)
- ⚡ Native ARM64 Linux application
- 💾 Backup of the first two Raspberry Pi partitions (
/boot+/) - 🧠 Intelligent device cloning with automatic partition detection
- 🔄 Restore directly from
.imgand.img.zstimages - 📉 Automatic image shrinking
- 🗜️ Fast Zstandard (
.zst) compression - 💽 Supports SD cards, SSDs, HDDs and other block devices
- 📏 Adjustable target partition size
- 👀 Live partition preview before restoring
- 🧱 Optional deletion of existing additional partitions
- ⚠️ Existing additional partitions are overwritten only after user confirmation
- 🚫 Configurable exclude list
- 🔐 Optional removal of SSH and DHCP configuration
- 🧹 Unused sectors are overwritten with
0xFFto improve compression efficiency and remove residual data
⚙️ Headless Setup Options
For fresh Raspberry Pi installations:
- Enable SSH on first boot
- Set username and password
- Configure Wi-Fi (SSID and PSK)
📦 Download & Installation
Recommended
# Download the latest release, extract it and install.
# Required dependencies (e.g. zstd) are installed automatically.
rm -rf /tmp/pibackup /tmp/pibackup.zip && \
wget -O /tmp/pibackup.zip "https://sourceforge.net/projects/pibackup/files/latest/download" && \
unzip -o /tmp/pibackup.zip -d /tmp/pibackup && \
sudo apt install -y "$(find /tmp/pibackup -type f -name 'pibackup.deb' -print -quit)"▶️ Run
sudo /path/to/pibackupor start it from the desktop menu:
Utility → PiBackup⚙️ Alternative Installation
sudo apt install ./pibackup.deb🧰 Requirements
- Linux (ARM64)
- Raspberry Pi OS / Debian Bookworm or newer
- No manual dependency installation required
- All dependencies are handled automatically by the Debian package
🛠️ Build Information
- Developed with CodeTyphon
- GUI: Qt5
- Target: ARM64 (64-bit)
Tested on
- Raspberry Pi 4
- Raspberry Pi 5
- Raspberry Pi OS Trixie (X11)
🛟 Emergency Recovery
Create a rescue SD card with Linux and pibackup.
In case of system failure:
- Boot the rescue system.
- Restore your backup image.
- Continue working within minutes.
📜 License
MIT License – see LICENSE.
⚠️ Disclaimer
This application writes directly to storage devices.
Always verify that the correct target device is selected before starting a restore or cloning operation.
Incorrect usage may result in data loss.
👤 Author
RaspberryFpc
🔗 Other Projects
- raspberry-udp_audio_receiver – Low-latency audio sender and receiver over UDP https://github.com/RaspberryFpc/raspberry-udp_audio_receiver
- DS18B20-FPC-Pi-GUI – GUI for DS18B20 temperature sensors https://github.com/RaspberryFpc/DS18B20-FPC-Pi-GUI
- RaspberryPi-BME280-GUI – GUI and driverfor BME280 environmental sensors https://github.com/RaspberryFpc/RaspberryPi-BME280-GUI
- RaspberryPi-GPIOv2-FPC – GPIO library for Free Pascal https://github.com/RaspberryFpc/RaspberryPi-GPIOv2-FPC

