A Python tool that automatically backs up your important files to another folder, external drive, or cloud folder (Google Drive/OneDrive).

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🎯 What This Backup Script Can Do

✔ Automatically copies all files from source → backup folder
✔ Creates a new backup folder with date (optional)
✔ Logs which files were copied
✔ Can run daily/weekly using scheduler
✔ Supports multiple source folders
✔ Avoids copying duplicates
✔ Shows backup summary
✔ Works on Windows, Mac, Linux

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🧰 Python Modules Used

• shutil – copying files
• os – file paths
• datetime – timestamp folders
• hashlib – prevents duplicate backup
• schedule – auto backups

All are built-in (no installation needed), except schedule (optional):

pip install schedule

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📁 Folder Structure

AutoBackup/
│── backup.py
│── config.json
│── logs.txt
│── backups/

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📌 config.json Example

{
    "source_paths": [
        "C:/Users/Sameer/Documents",
        "C:/Users/Sameer/Desktop/Projects"
    ],
    "backup_path": "D:/Backups",
    "create_daily_folder": true
}

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🧩 FULL WORKING BACKUP SCRIPT (backup.py)

import os
import shutil
import json
from datetime import datetime
import hashlib

# Load config
config = json.load(open("config.json"))
SOURCE_PATHS = config["source_paths"]
BACKUP_PATH = config["backup_path"]
DAILY_FOLDER = config["create_daily_folder"]

# Create daily backup folder
if DAILY_FOLDER:
    today = datetime.now().strftime("%Y-%m-%d")
    BACKUP_PATH = os.path.join(BACKUP_PATH, today)

os.makedirs(BACKUP_PATH, exist_ok=True)

def file_hash(path):
    """Return MD5 hash of a file to prevent duplicate backup."""
    hasher = hashlib.md5()
    with open(path, 'rb') as f:
        buf = f.read()
        hasher.update(buf)
    return hasher.hexdigest()

def backup_files():
    logs = []
    existing_hashes = set()

    # Load existing backup hashes
    for root, dirs, files in os.walk(BACKUP_PATH):
        for file in files:
            full_path = os.path.join(root, file)
            existing_hashes.add(file_hash(full_path))

    for src in SOURCE_PATHS:
        for root, dirs, files in os.walk(src):
            for file in files:
                src_file = os.path.join(root, file)

                # Skip duplicates
                if file_hash(src_file) in existing_hashes:
                    continue

                rel_path = os.path.relpath(root, src)
                dest_dir = os.path.join(BACKUP_PATH, rel_path)
                os.makedirs(dest_dir, exist_ok=True)

                dst_file = os.path.join(dest_dir, file)
                shutil.copy2(src_file, dst_file)
                logs.append(f"Copied: {src_file} → {dst_file}")

    # Save logs
    with open("logs.txt", "a") as f:
        f.write("\n".join(logs) + "\n")

    print("Backup completed.")
    print(f"Total files copied: {len(logs)}")


if __name__ == "__main__":
    backup_files()

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▶ Run Manually

python backup.py

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⏲️ Auto Backup Every Day

Create: schedule_backup.py

import schedule
import time
import os

def run_backup():
    os.system("python backup.py")

schedule.every().day.at("09:00").do(run_backup)

while True:
    schedule.run_pending()
    time.sleep(1)

Runs backup every day at 9 AM.