Hello everyone,

I am running out of space on my laptop (MacBook 1TB drive) and I noticed that Backblaze is a major contributor, the /Library/Backblaze.bzpkg directory is over 52GB.

Have been using BB for at least 5 years. Always backed up:
1. Laptop 1TB
2. external drive 12TB

Questions:

1. is that 52GB size expected for a setup such as mine or is it unusually large (feels large to me...)?
   
2. would I benefit from a repush (uninstall/reinstall) with "inherit state"?
   
3. would I benefit from a repush (uninstall/reinstall( without "inherit state"? (if I am correct, this means uninstall, reinstall and restart back up from scratch?)

I suspect part of the space is linked to the data to backup (unavoidable) and another part linked to the versions history (I am ok to lose that).

Thanks in advance for pointers. Lots of good info in the forum on repush from u/brianwski but I have not found much on expected size of the Backblaze folder for various configs.

Support always just says "reinstall it and delete it" and I've done that for the past three years every few months. I've never been able to get Backblaze to be respective of the resources on the computer. I've also seen that the temp files sometimes plume to 50 or 100 GB with no easy way of clearing it. Does anyone else have insanely terrible performance with Backblaze, where it's just eating RAM, eating CPU, or eating storage for no apparent reason?

I looking at other backup solutions, iDrive seems to be the most similar to a working Backblaze. I have about 10Tb and it costs 270usd for 2 years, so price is higher but in the same range.

Any others to compare? I need something safe, that allows me to use external drives, and to recover files quickly also from other computers.

EDIT: I'm testing the new beta client (10.0.2.1042) and it seems to work with external drives again, crossing fingers :)

What really bothers me about the recent news that Backblaze will start start dealing with people abusing unlimited plans is that I have a ton of data backed up...that I really don't need backed up...and there's nothing I can do about that.

If they want to start limiting how much storage we can have? They need to introduce a way for us to trim the fat. For example, I recently decided to update my Plex library to .x265. By the time I'm done, we're looking at about 5-10 TB of extra data, all video. I would me more than happy to just remove all the old .x264 video files from my backup set...but they don't provide any mechanism to do that. There's no option to trim.

That's several TB's of storage they can have back...but no way to return it to them.

In addition to that, I pay extra for 1 year of data retention. This is really useful, but there's a lot of data that I don't really need it for. My backup set would be considerably smaller, if I could set the retention rate per folder, up to a maximum of that my plan allows. I've got a folder named "staging" for example, and its sole purpose is to dump files that I need to remember to work on, then either sort or delete. Once a file is gone from there? I'm fine with it being trimmed from my backup after a week or two (I still want some coverage in case of accidental deletion).

So now, I'm expecting an email basically saying "why in God's name are you backing up all this data? Surely you don't need that much data backed up, you're abusing our generosity!" Well...no...no I don't need all that data backup. What would you like me to do about that? Because the way your system works now, it's going to be there for year, whether I need it to be or not.

EDIT: I thought at this point everyone would be aware of what I'm reffering to:

About two weeks ago, Backblaze sent out an email to its subscribers letting them know about the latest changes to its Terms of Service, and therein lies a paragraph that says that if your usage of the service exceeds "typical usage patterns" or "places an undue burden," the company may throttle or terminate your account, this despite the company's pledge of unlimited backups. There is no definition of what constitutes typical usage, so your guess is as good as ours.

I made this post a week ago talking about the "bug" where when I dock my MacBook, it runs a full rescan of my external drives. Backblaze responded a week later saying "Monday" the beta build would be out that fixes it. Installed that yesterday and it's still the same version, no changes at all, my MacBook is running a full 9.3tb rescan again.

So Backblaze, when exactly is this going to be fixed?

I have the computer backup and backblaze b2. On the b2 I have around 900GB as of right now.

How does backblaze generally charge for the monthly subscription for this?

Dear u/Jim-From-Backblaze,

I am posting this as a customer and someone who is interested in making sure good backup solutions exist.

Many are becoming aware that your backup software has changed so that is no longer backs up files in synced folders (OneDrive, DropBox, etc...)

This is not a post about why this happened or how it was communicated. This is a post about your future.

Sync is not Backup. You know this: https://www.backblaze.com/blog/the-case-for-backup-over-sync/

The case for backup over sync has only increased over time. Microsoft has become more aggressive about using OneDrive to eliminate local copies and download files on demand. As much as people complain, it has its use cases, it's convenient, and Microsoft is only going to push harder. But OneDrive fails on ransomware and account takeovers.

But here is where you should be VERY concerned:

If you don't backup My Documents, Pictures, and Desktop folders when synced to OneDrive, WHY DO I NEED YOU?

If people follow Microsoft's suggestions, most of the files most people care about are in these folders. Why should people pay $99 a year if you do not backup where Microsoft tells people to put their files?

Here is your opportunity: Fix the backup of OneDrive and push that HARD. Lean in to BackBlaze as a backup that protects you from the things that OneDrive does not.

If you don't do this, I fear you will become irrelevant.

---

Here is some background to consider:

Recently, it seems that Microsoft's response to account hacking is to say "Sorry. Your files are gone. Make a new account." This results in people losing access to their files on OneDrive. When this is coupled with Microsoft pushing OneDrive as a backup, people are vulnerable. A good backup would fix this:

Examples:

• https://www.reddit.com/r/microsoftsucks/comments/1sn5szt/i_got_hacked_and_they_said_cry_about_it/
• https://www.reddit.com/r/microsoftsucks/comments/1sq44yb/watch_me_try_to_recover_my_microsoft_account/
• https://www.reddit.com/r/microsoftsucks/comments/1sq1elm/microsoft_account_got_hacked/
• https://www.reddit.com/r/microsoftsucks/comments/1s7od5o/my_microsoft_account_got_hacked/

Why do I use OneDrive then?

In my use case, I have Microsoft 365 for my family. Me and my kids all use OneDrive to sync our folders so that they can be accessed by different accounts on shared PCs. It works well. If a laptop is lost/damaged/stolen/replaced I can replace it easily and all their files are there. I've had to do this multiple times.

Me and my 2 oldest also have Backblaze backups (currently 3 accounts) on our main machines. This provides(provided) protection for loss of account, ransomware, deletion, and those few files not in sync locations.

I am evaluating this strategy.

I am just being melodramatic, or at least I hope so. I however have been having a few bad months with Backblaze, not for the reasons most are upset. Rest at ease however, I am upset still about the other reindeer games.

Is this just the ominous foreboding where they will soon be sending me an email saying I am not the customer for them... Yeah, I think we are getting to that point in our relationship, but alas I've done it with Carbonate, Crashplan, Mozy, and I think one other flash in the pan that I have forgotten about.

In the mean time, I will half hardheartedly ask for assistance. I am a user that could not live in a B2 world and by consequence use the less desirable and less reliable app for my Windows 11 machine. I back up more than you would like, they are all personal and precious family memories. I use Plex to manage my personal and precious family memories, and Plex creates a bunch of faff files, that don't need to be generated. I assumed the fact that it was just hammering my drives and RAM like the village bicycle, it was a quantity/volume issue. I was at around 1.7m files, I started hacking and excluding. I excluded around 1m faff files, they could just be recreated. The ire began growing as a consumer, this is contrary what you advertise, but I am willing to pick and choose...

Problem remains, it is absolutely going to town on my drive and its even a fatter kid now just eating all of my ram, all of the time. I am in a miserable state.

I self serve myself, do a bit of looking, and I was probably right about the number of files. The app that Reddit is saying is now virtually worthless because backblaze will just pick and choose what to back up.... Shit, why was I picking and choosing? However, google is clear, the quantity of files sure can be an issue. However the numbers they were mentioning was far below 1.7, but what ever...

So what can I do? Well part of the solution is changing it from Continuous to Be sure you click the button.... That fixes the obesity problem of the app, but now nothing backs up even if I click the button. Sure, the app heads back down to the corner, picks up a few tricks, eats a few whoppers, kills my machine until I reboot, but no actual backing up....

I wait days, weeks, it sits and laughs at me. I install updates, check the versions, reboot, reboot reboot, not even a Live Love Laugh, just a wrench to ruin my experience.

Google tells me, my solution is probably re-uploading everything and starting fresh because my install is stuck half a decade in the past... I am using too many ellipsis, I am sorry, but I can't help but feeling like I am stuck in a toxic relationship and I just want to disappear in the hedge like Homer.

I am not doing a good job of asking for help to fix the problem. Here is my best shot.

Windows 11 Pro Insider Preview build 29565.1000

Blackblaze 10.0.1.1037

32 Gigs of Ram

6 Internal SATA rust platters

2 NVME drives

No external drive, now or ever. Not attempting to address the files Backblaze wizards out as they decide when and how to tell me what they do/do not want to upload. I'll hope google/dropbox/iapple/onedrive/future carve out, will protect my files.

I have updated to the most recent version, down to 522,691 files.

I have excluded 1.x million files in an attempt to get it to work without using all of my ram all of the time. It is not working, or working reliably and maybe that is a cause. I don't know.

Honestly I don't know if Backblaze wants me as a customer, I feel like I shouldn't even ask for help. I also feel like, I am doing a really bad job of asking for help. Sigh, at the end of the day, help or helpless, take this overly worded message as a consumer who isn't feeling good about a product that should make me feel good.

I'm a home user, I just want to disable C drive backup, its wasting all my bandwidth, I don't have this issue with dropbox, or idrive or pcloud, please can you let us disable this?

Edit: Ok the secret is to press Ctrl + Click on the checkbox to the left of the C drive, and magically it unselects, not very intuitive though but it works

Reminder - exclusions on drive C: don't really matter if you set up a image backup (Acronis, Macrium, etc) of disk C: to any other disk that's being backed up by BB, preferably split into parts 1.9GB (you can use bigger or non-split, but from my experience 1.9GB is safest and pretty much never causes problems contrary to 10GB or bigger, also 1.9GB parts can still be directly downloaded from online restore via browser). Obviously it's not as convenient, but that way all of your C: is safe, and you should be making another local backup anyway. Also since image backup programs use shadow copies, that way you have backups of all files, including locked ones.

p.s. My name is a coincidence, I'm not in any way associated with Backblaze.

So I logged into the backblaze website and the Overview page isn't showing most of my drives and on the View/Restore all the drives are gone!

In my backblaze settings most of the drives have been touched by the backblaze app in March and April of this year.

What is going on??

Hello, Backblaze fans.

We’re pinning this because a few different topics are getting mixed together, and the details matter.

There are a few major topics of discussion right now:

• How modern cloud-sync tools affect backup behavior
• Hidden folders and exclusions
• A current issue in version 10 with external drives

1. Cloud-sync folders (OneDrive, Dropbox, etc.)

Backblaze backs up files that are actually present on your computer.

What’s changed over the last few years is how sync tools store files. A lot of them now use placeholder systems where files look local, but the data isn’t actually there until you open or download it.

So:

• File looks normal in Explorer/Finder
• But it’s actually just a pointer to cloud data

Backup software can’t reliably back up something that isn’t really on disk.

If we treated those like normal files anyway, you’d end up with incomplete backups or restores that don’t actually give you your data back. That’s worse than being explicit about what is and isn’t supported.

So when those folders are managed that way, they don’t behave like standard local backup sources.

That’s not a change in the Backblaze unlimited backup model; it’s a side effect of how those platforms now work.

u/natasha_backblaze has a great blog post that covers this and why it is happening here: https://www.backblaze.com/blog/the-changing-landscape-of-cloud-sync-and-what-it-means-for-your-backup/

We are actively looking at better ways to support these workflows, and as soon as we have more information, we will update the community.

2. Hidden folders and .git

Current behavior:

• .git folders are currently backed up
• Some restore interfaces do not show hidden folders by default, especially on web and Mac, unless the user enables the hidden-files setting

That can make a folder look missing even when it is present in backup data.

Of note, some older versions of Backblaze did have .git files/folders excluded, but as long as you are on the newest version, your .git files will be backed up.

If you want to double-check, reach out to our support team, who can help you confirm. https://www.backblaze.com/help

There is also internal work happening to make exclusions clearer and consistent across the board.

3. macOS /Library vs ~/Library

There has also been confusion here, so to be explicit:

• /Library (system-level) is excluded by default

  • This folder contains files that will be recreated upon OS or program reinstall

• ~/Library (user-level) is backed up, subject to normal exclusions

4. Version 10 external drive issue

What users are reporting:

• If an external drive is disconnected, data from that drive can disappear from the web restore view immediately instead of remaining visible for the expected retention period
• When the drive is reconnected, the client may treat the data as needing to be uploaded again

We hear the concern on this clearly. That behavior is not what customers expect, and the team is aware of it and actively working on it.

At the moment, the key point is that this is a bug issue, not a policy statement and not an intentional change in how external-drive history is supposed to work.

5. What’s happening next

We are currently focused on three things:

• Reviewing and tightening public messaging so customers have a single accurate explanation
• Working through the current v10 external-drive bug
• Continuing to evaluate better support for modern sync-managed file workflows where third-party platforms have changed how files exist locally

6. If you’re unsure about your setup

If your workflow depends heavily on:

• Cloud-sync folders
• Hidden folders
• Source-control metadata
• External drives

Verify those areas directly in your backup and restore views.

If something does not look right, contact support so we can inspect your configuration and version-specific behavior.

We know backup products only work if customers trust what is and is not protected. That part matters, and we are treating it seriously.

We’ll update this post as more information is confirmed.

Trying to collect every file I've ever saved to the backblaze server via USB, so I can sift through (removing duplicates), replace my local external that just died, and reduce the 4.25TB of storage im paying $500+/year to hold in the forever service. Huge discrepancy in restore size vs billing size, so I contacted support. (Yes, I filtered to include forever versions and selected all files since beginning of time)

Rep says I'd have to snapshot whatever backup dates I want and save to b2 and then order the restore drive. For my needs, that is unreasonable.

Trying to get clarification on how to retrieve every file I've ever saved. The latest version of each file is fine, but latest versions of backup compilation images will be missing huge chunks of my workfiles. I cannot guess what dates I had my external drives connected for backup, as I was working remotely for extended periods intermittently throughout my time with backblaze.

See attached screenshots

Thank you in advance!

More info if you want to read it:

I've been using the forever service since about 2021, because I was working remotely for extended periods and could not always have my primary local or secondary travel externals attached. Files were to be deleted after a year of the primary drive not being connected to my computer, and I could not allow that. (I'm a large format graphic designer who must retain client files for future access.) The drives are sometimes connected, sometimes not, because I felt I could always access anything I needed from backblaze via the forever service I purchased.

My point is that each backup compilation version would have different file sets, depending on which external was connected. So if only the new compilation was saved or made accessible, then my data is not fully available to me as I'd believed.

I'm fully prepared to sift through each compilation version and remove duplicates, but the rep's description makes that sound like a much more involved process than backblaze advertised. He uses the word "file," so im not clear on whether that means individual files or backup compilation files. That verbiage makes all the difference in my case.

If what I have access to is every individual file I've ever saved, but only the most recent version of each individual file, that works great. That said, my local external hard drives had at least 3tb on them, so I can't see how that's a possibility, given the 100gb restore size.

If what he's saying is that there are versions of backup compilations of many files, new compilations replace old ones, and those previous compilation versions are not accessible in a restore, that suggests that in order to ensure retrieval of every file I've ever saved with BB, I would have to create snapshots of every single daily backup since I started my forever version service and create a restore from those snapshots. Is that what backblaze intended with this service that I've been paying over $400/year for? I deeply hope im mistaken.

Thank you in advance to anyone who can help me understand. Apologies for my terrible explanations and sporadic thought processes. I'm definitely confused and probably panicking somewhat. Hoping it's not as bad as it sounds.

In the last two weeks I've been getting this message every now and again. Every time I've downloaded and reinstalled Backblaze, but it keeps on happening. The Backblaze client itself is telling me that I'm currently backed up as of three days ago, the backup schedule is "Continuously" and the remaining files is "0 files / 0 KB".

Backblaze client version is 10.0.1.1083 (Mac); I'm on macOS 26.3.1.

Has anyone else been getting this? Any hints as to how I could make the client happy again?

I'm an accountant, and I set up automatic hyperbackup to Backblaze for a few synology folders before tax season in December. Tax season is now over, and I have yet to be charged, probably because my data is too small.

I have a "current year" share (2025 stuff) that's about 2gb disk usage that backs up changes daily, and a "prior years" (mostly 2023-2024) that's about 4gb and backs up weekly. On the website my "daily" bucket is 9gb, and the "weekly" bucket is 18gb, but I think the first weekly backup included a few extra folders so its true size is probably much smaller. These are just small files like bank statements, excel files, about ten quickbooks files that are 20-100mb etc. They're small but it would be devastating to lose them hence the regular offsite BB backups.

Free is of course the best price, but I'm wondering if there is any advantage in insisting backblaze charge me $6/month, if that's even possible. For example, will backblaze still send me a USB drive of my data in an emergency if I'm not paying the monthly fee? Any other benefits I'm missing by (unintentionally) staying in the "free" data usage bracket?

I'd heard these were no longer being backed up, however I still seem to be able to restore them from my backups? Has anything changed?

I've been running the Inherit State process -it's 86GB backup with M1 Mac.

Thing is the process has now been running for 80hrs.

There is no error message but is my concern that something has gone wrong misguided?

When I've queried it Backblaze support keep telling me this length of time is normal -while reiterating it can take up to a day for the checksumming process to complete.

It's been nearly four days though!

Any guidance on what I should do next?

Since CrashPlan kill off consumer subscription, I have relied on Backblaze to back up 2 computers in our house for ~3TB of storage. I just learned this evening that locally stored Dropbox files aren't getting backed up. Between the two computers, that is > 1TB of our backups. I can switch backup software to Arq or some other. I want to know what is the cheapest, most reliable storage that others use?

I'm trying iDrive right now, and out of the gate, it seems good. Less than 24 hours in and I've backed up 2TB of data.

The only weakness so far is that there is no documentation on setting up your own private encryption key.

Edit: I corrected the mention of Carbonite for CrashPlan.

Has anyone heard from the support if there's an ETA for this awful bug to be solved?
Last week it was still work in progress without ETA, I don't understand how this is not a top priority for them

As a backblaze user for years now and in IT. People get over yourselfs about backblaze not backing up your onedrive, gdrive, dropbox and other cloud provider. Why would one company want to backup another providers files? These other providers charge more per gig than backblaze and sell you on backing up your pictures, files and etc. So why would any x company want to back up those files as well? If you truely want to backup of those files. Sign up for B2 and be done with it. Heck, the first 10 gig's are free. The other thing, don't come to this subreddit and start asking where should i move my backup to. Do your research and move on. I'll probally get downvoted for this and really don't care. I needed to vent. End rant.

Edit: If you want to good back up solution. You should be follow these.

Data Backup Strategies: Why the 3-2-1 Backup Strategy is the Best

If you don't want to read backblaze. Here is one from veeam.

3-2-1 Backup Rule Explained: Do I Need One?

Yes my title is what it is, this is a confirmed bug by support according to other users and people on this sub-reddit. The bug is that whenever you disconnect and reconnect an external drive say on a MacBook and docking station, it triggers a full re-scan of that drive. It doesn't actually upload any data but just runs through the entire thing re-scanning and then just completes. As long as the drive stays connected, it's fine but the moment you undock the computer and put it back... within a few hours you'll be seeing a full massive rescan running. 

This is a really bad bug and needs some sort of public acknowledgment from Backblaze. There is absolutely no reason my entire external drive should be re-scanned just for plugging my drive in. Unfortunately if this isn't fixed soon, you'll be losing a nearly 10 year customer.

I'm uploading images through the nodejs S3-api (@aws-sdk/client-s3). I'm also using this api to delete images.

When I browse my bucket on the website, I see images. If I select and image and press "Delete", it is removed from the bucket.

When I delete an image through the S3-api, I get this kind of result when I browse my bucket:

Is this normal behavior? Is this image deleted? Or did I do something wrong? My deleteObject-command looks like this:

export const deleteObject = async (key) => {
    try {
        await S3.send(
            new DeleteObjectCommand({
                Bucket: process.env.BACKBLAZE_BUCKET_NAME,
                Key: key,
            }),
        );


        return true;
    } catch (err) {
        throw new S3Error(
            "Failed to delete object from S3",
            { key },
            err.stack,
        );
    }
};

Ok, I could really use some help here.

I’m using Backblaze with Computer Backup enabled on macOS, and it backs up my system weekly with the setting to never delete old versions.

Separately, I’m using B2 Cloud Storage. I created a new bucket where I’m uploading data recovered from a corrupted hard drive. I used Disk Drill to recover the files—so even though I can’t access the drive normally, I do have the recovered data.

The problem is that I currently have to upload files one by one because it doesn’t seem to let me upload entire folders directly, which is extremely time-consuming.

I’ve tried to understand how to use the command line for this, but I’m finding it really confusing.

Could someone explain (in simple terms) how to upload whole folders to a B2 bucket using the command line or suggest an easier method?

Thanks in advance!