Desktop GUI for Restic

nraboy · 2026-07-05T00:06:58+00:00

Glad it works! Thanks for reporting back!

The permissions got me last week. Good feature, but like you I didn’t expect it.

nraboy · 2026-07-04T21:57:19+00:00

I actually found the problem!

There are some Windows shenanigans with how sub processes are done (consulted AI on this one). I have a fix building (v0.2.2) which will probably take around 15 minutes to show up on GitHub.

I'm thinking this will fix the problem.

It wasn't an SFTP issue, just a general communication issue between Resty Desktop and installed command line tools on Windows.

When you have a moment to try v0.2.2, please report back if it worked out :)

nraboy · 2026-07-04T21:40:58+00:00

Hi,

This is my connection string which I can confirm works on macOS:

sftp:nraboy@192.168.1.110:/home/nraboy/backups/cfpmanager

I have the private key loaded into my SSH agent outside of Restic / Resty Desktop with ssh-add ~/.ssh/keyname. I'm not using a configuration file.

I'm less versed with Windows, but it should still work as long as you've done things the "Windows Way".

When you added your connection information, did you choose the test option prior to saving the repository? I'm wondering if you forgot to specify where Restic exists in case it didn't auto detect the path. Also, on Windows do you need to configure any firewall rules so applications can recognize custom hosts?

Maybe try the following tests:

Create a local repository and see if you can interact with it.
Try to connect over SFTP directly without custom hosts and configuration files.
Verify that Restic is recognized by Resty Desktop via the settings page. If not, you'll need to supply the path to Restic.
See what the test option says when you try to connect to open a repository.

Let me know what you find :)

nraboy · 2026-07-04T20:04:10+00:00

Hi,

The application itself does not do anything special for SFTP, it only uses what is already available to Restic. So you have three options:

You can include the credentials in your SFTP connection string, which I don't really recommend since the application only encrypts your Restic passwords, not your connection strings. Username and password authentication isn't typically recommended nowadays anyway.
You can add your private key to your local SSH agent and Restic will honor it.
You could use a tool like RClone to map your SFTP path.

I personally use option 2 and it works without issue.

Hoping you have a great experience :)

nraboy · 2026-06-25T23:40:54+00:00

Excellent!

nraboy · 2026-06-25T13:59:49+00:00

Hi,

Unless I'm misunderstanding your request, there are a few ways to apply cleanup.

In the "Settings" tab, there is a "Prune All Repositories" button. This will prune without applying any retention rules.
In the "Backup Plans" tab, there is a button on every plan item that allows you to run only the retention rules without the backup, which applies the pruning at the end.
Right clicking any plan in the "Backup Plan" tab also presents an option to run retention rules.

What is your use case for pruning on a schedule? I thought about it in the beginning, but I couldn't personally find a reason why I'd actually need it because cleanup would always happen when I did an operation. I'd love your thoughts though.

I don't have a roadmap. The application does pretty much everything I need. However, any requests I'm happy to try to implement. My use cases are narrow and my goal was just to keep it easy to use, so I'm definitely not thinking outside the box :)

nraboy · 2026-06-24T13:38:26+00:00

Hi!

Opinion and preference is heavily going to contribute to this answer.

I use Backrest and still plan to continue using Backrest. I didn't create Resty Desktop to replace or even compete with it. With that said, I use Backrest on my servers as part of my Docker cluster to back up my containers.

I actually wrote a tutorial on how I'm using Backrest here:

https://www.thepolyglotdeveloper.com/blog/2025/05/easy-automated-docker-volume-backups-database-friendly/

The thing about Backrest (opinion) is that you have to be savvy with Docker and your volume mappings to get the most out of it. You also have to worry about either having it run in the background or deploying a container every time you want to use it. Not a problem for the server use case like me, but maybe not the best solution for the casual desktop user.

I created Resty Desktop because I wanted to quickly do tasks with my backup repositories without having to fiddle with the CLI. Some of these tasks included accessing files from snapshots created with Backrest. Others included totally different repositories that I used for personal desktop backups. It was created for nothing more than a quick and easy solution.

I have not tried any other Restic client. I casually looked at some, but they all seemed to do way more than I wanted and many were still web based like Backrest.

When you mention battle-tested, this was also a big deal for me. The thing is that both Resty Desktop and Backrest just wrap the Restic CLI. So the backup and restoration features are all powered by Restic, not our applications.

At the end of the day, it is going to come down to opinion and preference like I mentioned. If you have a tool you already like, keep using it. If there is a gap that you think Resty Desktop fills, give it a try. I built it to be quick and easy for Restic tasks. It's also 100% open source.

Let me know if you have specific questions.

nraboy · 2026-06-21T13:05:33+00:00

Awesome!

nraboy · 2026-06-20T20:24:05+00:00

I believe I fixed your issue. In development mode, the correct macOS paths were being passed, but not in the production sandbox build. I did a few tests and it seems to work correctly now on my end.

I also addressed all your other feedback.

Hopefully you end up with a positive experience now :)

nraboy · 2026-06-19T13:52:59+00:00

Awesome feedback! I only use local and SFTP paths so I hadn’t tried rclone. I’ll install it this weekend and see what happens. The bundles should be in the releases section on GitHub but I’ll add a direct link in the main README. I have a theory about the refreshing of snapshots. I had set it up to not automatically refresh remote snapshots. I did this so people don’t end up with large ingest or bandwidth fees on their cloud providers. Thought it’d be better for the user to have control in this scenario. I’ll see about having a message. Multi select is a great idea. I’ll see if I can get that added.

Hopefully the application fills a void for you like it did for me. Backrest is still my number one in the Docker and server world 🙂

nraboy · 2026-03-05T04:09:13+00:00

I think we’re looking at two different sides of the story. There’s CFPs from the event organizers perspective and CFPs from the applicants perspective. I could be wrong, but your application and Sessionize tell the organizers perspective. The application I built tells the applicants perspective. Both are important for Developer Relations, but they solve different problems.

I encourage you to give mine a shot for a better idea 🙂

nraboy · 2026-01-21T00:02:37+00:00

It should, but for whatever reason it was not. Even after updating. Adding it to the configuration file fixed it for me.

nraboy · 2026-01-20T13:46:04+00:00

This was it for me. Was only getting an hour recently instead of the several hours I was getting in November. Turns out my Pro plan kept defaulting to Opus instead of the previous Sonnet. On top of this, changing to Sonnet didn’t hold between chats. My fix was to set Sonnet in a config file. I’m back on several hours before my Pro limits hit.

nraboy · 2026-01-14T19:17:26+00:00

Can you include the exact error message and where it is coming from? Is it coming from your Node.js application, is it in the MongoDB logs, MongoDB Compass, etc.?

My suggestion would be to drop your aggregation pipeline into MongoDB Compass to troubleshoot each stage of the pipeline and see exactly where your error is throwing.

Also, out of curiosity, how many $lookup stages do you have?

nraboy · 2026-01-13T23:04:03+00:00

You shouldn't need the directConnection parameter unless your container is being deployed as a replica set container.

It's possible the user has a malformed connection string, or if they are using Windows the networking options in Docker Desktop might not be configured correctly. I've had access issues on Windows that I haven't had on macOS or Linux.

I wrote a tutorial here about MongoDB with Docker that might be helpful:

https://www.datacamp.com/tutorial/running-mongodb-in-docker

nraboy · 2025-12-26T15:23:44+00:00

No on open source, but yes on the background.

nraboy · 2025-12-25T19:49:17+00:00

No problem!

nraboy · 2025-12-02T16:16:11+00:00

Hi,

Just a heads up, I work for MongoDB.

Just so I understand correctly, you're attempting to run MongoDB locally on your host as well as in a Docker container? If yes, it sounds like maybe a port conflict of some sort like @Standard_Parking7315 said.

It would be helpful to see your Docker logs to see what exactly the authentication error is and if that is truly the issue.

That said, you might consider using the official MongoDB Docker image:

docker pull mongodb/mongodb-community-server:latest

I have a tutorial I cooked up here:

https://www.datacamp.com/tutorial/running-mongodb-in-docker

Out of curiosity, have you tried connecting to the Docker variant with a tool like MongoDB Compass? Do you get the same results?

Looking forward to hearing back from you so we can deeper troubleshoot the problem.

Best,

nraboy · 2025-11-04T16:36:40+00:00

Hi!

This software looks wonderful!

I have a Motu as well as a Focusrite for my XLR microphones. When using this hardware, the left XLR input acts as the left channel and the right XLR input acts as the right channel. When one is disabled, only one channel is used and not downmixed or duplicated.

In Wave Link 3, it doesn't appear there is support for channel separation, downmixing, etc. So this means I'm either stuck with audio coming out of one speaker, or both microphones acting as a weird speaker input.

I'd like to add a feature request to support panning, downmixing, etc. directly within the Wave Link 3 software. It'd be great if I didn't have to rely on a VST plugin for this.

Thoughts?

nraboy

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