These behaviors are intentional. Knowing them up front avoids surprises.
Full snapshots
Each backup is a complete tar.zst archive of the marked folder’s included regular files. Empty directories, special files, and the root .upload_dir marker are omitted. There are no incremental backups, block-level deduplication, or delta chains. Every snapshot is self-contained and can be restored on its own with its encryption key.
Path-and-size fingerprinting
Edge decides whether a new snapshot is needed from a fingerprint of the folder’s sorted file paths and sizes. It does not hash file contents or look at modification times.
This means an edit that keeps every file’s path and size the same does not trigger an automatic backup.
To capture that kind of edit, use Force Upload on the job in Edge. If the job has an older staged archive, use Clear staged backup first so Force Upload builds a fresh one.
Count-based retention
Central keeps up to the most recent N snapshots per job and Edge instance, where N is Central’s Keep Last Snapshots setting (default 3). Retention is count-based, not age- or total-storage-based. Central separately limits the size of each incoming archive.
Restore replaces files
Restoring a snapshot writes its files back into the job’s folder and overwrites local copies of the same files. Files that aren’t in the snapshot are left untouched. Edge shows a preview of how many files will be replaced and added before anything is written. See Restore.
Permissions
Snapshots preserve regular files’ permission bits, including executable and private-file permissions, and restore applies them where the operating system supports it. Ownership, ACLs, and special permission bits are not preserved. Older snapshots can’t recover permissions they never recorded.
Edge skips its own runtime data
On startup Edge marks its spool and state directories with a hidden .3to1go-runtime file. Those directories are excluded if Edge ends up backing itself up, even through another mount path. Edge’s configuration and encryption key are still included.
One operator per app
Each app’s sign-in is meant for one operator, to keep unauthorized people out. The current UI includes accounts and an admin flag, but there is no tenant isolation or per-user ownership of backups. See Sign-in and accounts. 