---
title: "rsync Backup Rotation — Daily, Weekly, Monthly Archives"
language: en
topics: ["cloud", "linux", "server"]
full_article_url: https://willem.com/en/2020-10-30_how-to-use-rsync-to-make-backups/
---
# rsync Backup Rotation — Daily, Weekly, Monthly Archives

*A practical rsync backup scheme with incremental transfers and automatic rotation.*

> rsync is the most reliable backup tool on Linux — but setting up a proper rotation scheme takes thought. Here's a practical approach to daily, weekly, and monthly backups with incremental transfers that only copy what changed.

The key to a good backup strategy is **rotation**: keeping recent backups for quick recovery, older ones for longer-term safety, and automatically removing the oldest to save space.

A practical scheme:
- **Daily backups** — keep the last 7 days
- **Weekly backups** — keep the last 4 weeks
- **Monthly backups** — keep the last 12 months



Using rsync's `--link-dest` option, each backup only stores the files that changed since the last run. Unchanged files are hard-linked to the previous backup, using almost no extra disk space. This means you can keep months of daily backups without needing terabytes of storage.

Automate it with a cron job, and you have a backup system that runs silently, efficiently, and never forgets.

From Willem's complete guide to [self-hosting your own infrastructure](https://willem.com/en/self-hosting-running-your-own-infrastructure-on-linux/).