How To Install Timeshift on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS

In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Timeshift on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS. For those of you who didn’t know, Timeshift is software that provides a function similar to System Restore on Windows or Time machine on macOS. Timeshift protects your system by taking incremental snapshots of the file system at regular intervals. These snapshots can be restored at a later date to undo all changes to the system.

This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you the step-by-step installation of the Timeshift restore or backup tool on Ubuntu 22.04 (Jammy Jellyfish). You can follow the same instructions for Ubuntu 22.04 and any other Debian-based distribution like Linux Mint, Elementary OS, Pop!_OS, and more as well.

Prerequisites

• A server running one of the following operating systems: Ubuntu 22.04, 20.04, and any other Debian-based distribution like Linux Mint.
• It’s recommended that you use a fresh OS install to prevent any potential issues.
• SSH access to the server (or just open Terminal if you’re on a desktop).
• A non-root sudo user or access to the root user. We recommend acting as a non-root sudo user, however, as you can harm your system if you’re not careful when acting as the root.

Install Timeshift on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS Jammy Jellyfish

Step 1. First, make sure that all your system packages are up-to-date by running the following apt commands in the terminal.

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade
sudo apt install wget apt-transport-https gnupg2 software-properties-common

Step 5. Installing Timeshift on Ubuntu 22.04.

By default, Timeshift is not available on Ubuntu 22.04 base repository. Now run the following command below to add the Timeshift PPA repository to your Ubuntu system:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:xtradeb/apps

Then, execute the following commands to install the latest stable version of Timeshift on your Ubuntu system:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install timeshift

Step 3. Accessing Timeshift on Ubuntu 22.04.

Once successfully installed on your Ubuntu system, run the following path on your desktop to open the path: Activities -> Show Applications -> Timeshift.

In the next step, you must select the snapshot type from the available options and click on Next.

1. RSYNC – Rsync takes backup with the rsync command and also used hard links. Rsync backups are browsable using file managers.
2. BTRFS – with this mode, timeshift uses in-built features of BTRFS & then to restore snapshots, BTRFS should be supported with the Ubuntu-type subvolume layout.

Timeshift also supports the command line to create and restore the backup. to create a backup, simply run the following command:

sudo timeshift --create --comments "Backup with CLI" --tags D

In tags, you can any of the following options:

--tags D stands for Daily Backup.

--tags W stands for Weekly Backup.

--tags M stands for Monthly Backup.

--tags O stands for On-demand Backup.

Congratulations! You have successfully installed Timeshift. Thanks for using this tutorial for installing Timeshift restore or backup tool  on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS Jammy Jellyfish system. For additional help or useful information, we recommend you check the official Timeshift website.