INink_13·Apr 4, 2024
That's not true, actually. Code for restoring from Arq backups is freely available: https://github.com/arqbackup/arq_restore
In A disk so full, it couldn't be restoredarqbackup
arq_restore
C2011–2024
arqbackup / arq_restore
arq_restore
command-line utility for restoring from Arq backups
7Distinct people
7Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
678GitHub stars
What to know before exploring
What it is
command-line utility for restoring from Arq backups
GitHub
Where it is used
No documented product use has been verified yet.
What people are saying
No recommendation phrase was found in the indexed comments.
No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.
Also in these discussions
No other repository is repeatedly linked in the same discussions.
This week on Hacker News
Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 3:56:07 PM UTC.
No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.
Mentions over time
HN mentions by year7 dated mentions
Observed mentions: 2011-02-16 08:44:11 UTC to 2024-04-04 15:20:00 UTC.
Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.
View mention counts and date ranges
| Period | Start (UTC) | End (exclusive, UTC) | Mentions | Submissions | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2011 | 2011-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2012-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| 2012 | 2012-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2013-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2013 | 2013-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2014 | 2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2015 | 2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2016 | 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| 2017 | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2018 | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2019 | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2020 | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2021 | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2022 | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2023 | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2024 | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
What Hacker News says
7 sourcesRegarding Arq backup: if you are worried about using a proprietary (enrypted) and closed-source backup format in case the company were to go under, they have an open source command-line restore tool:
https://github.com/arqbackup/arq_restore
I've been using Arq for years, but I need to look into the "Glacier Deep Archive" format which is about 1/20th the cost of the fastest storage class.
In Digital clutter: Learning to let go and stop hoarding terabytesAdding on: Arq has a open source restore tool, which I think is important in the long term: https://github.com/arqbackup/arq_restore
In I Nearly Lost All of My DataOne technical thing to note:
Although the application itself is not open source, the developer has open-sourced a restore tool, to help ease the "what if they go out of business" concerns:
https://github.com/sreitshamer/arq_restore
Also, somebody else has created a Go utility that can read the backup format:
https://github.com/asimihsan/arqinator
Finally, if you really wanted to do it all yourself, the data format is documented here:
http://www.haystacksoftware.com/arq/s3_data_format.txt
In Arq 5: Massively faster backup and restore for Mac and WindowsNo it doesn't. They've had an open-source CLI tool since at least 2013.
https://github.com/sreitshamer/arq_restore
In I ended up paying $150 for a single 60GB download from Amazon GlacierNice. I checked, and the source to the restore tool has been updated too:
https://github.com/sreitshamer/arq_restore
(I haven't run a test restore with it yet, though.)
In Arq 2 (OS X backup-to-S3 software) has been released.I've switched to using Arq for my backups. It's not a service like Mozy/Backblaze, you purchase the Arq client (30 bucks) and then it backs up to your own S3 account.
The fact it is not a service has lots of positive benefits for me:
The company can die and I can still recover my files (there's an open source recovery tool on github - https://github.com/sreitshamer/arq_restore
It also does away with some of the stupid restrictions typically found with Backblaze/Mozy with respect to backing up network drives.
Incremental backups are lightning fast.
It keeps a "Time Capsule" style incremented history of your recently changed files.
In Why I no longer trust EMC