Daily Folder Backup

A tiny Python script that automatically backs up a folder to a destination directory once a day, timestamped by date.

Features

• Runs continuously in the background and triggers a backup every day at a set time
• Copies an entire folder tree using shutil.copytree
• Names each backup by the date it was created (e.g. 2026-07-16), so you get one snapshot per day
• Skips silently (with a message) if a backup for that day already exists, instead of crashing

Requirements

• Python 3.7+
• schedule library

Install the dependency with:

pip install schedule

Configuration

Open the script and set the two path variables at the top:

source_dir = "/path/to/folder/to/back/up"
destination_dir = "/path/to/where/backups/go"

By default, the job runs daily at 12:00 (24-hour format). To change the time, edit this line:

schedule.every().day.at("12:00").do(...)

Usage

Run the script and leave it running (e.g. in a terminal, tmux/screen session, or as a background service):

python automatic_file_backup.py

Each day at the scheduled time, it will create a new folder inside destination_dir named after the current date, containing a full copy of source_dir.

How it works

1. schedule checks every 60 seconds whether it’s time to run the backup job.
2. When triggered, copy_folder_to_directionary() builds a destination path using today’s date.
3. shutil.copytree recursively copies the source folder into that dated destination.
4. If a folder for that date already exists, a FileExistsError is caught and a message is printed instead of overwriting or crashing.

Limitations & ideas for contribution

• Only one backup per day is supported (running twice in a day just logs “already exists”)
• No cleanup/rotation of old backups — the destination folder will grow indefinitely
• No logging to a file, only print statements
• Could be extended with:
  • Configurable backup retention (e.g. delete backups older than N days)
  • Support for multiple source folders
  • Compression (zip/tar) instead of a raw folder copy
  • A config file or CLI args instead of hardcoded paths
  • Proper logging via Python’s logging module