Automatic backups that leave the box
The copy that matters is the one that isn't on the machine. This page is the plain account of where Cresdock can send backups, how you find out they ran — or failed — and the protections that exist before any backup does. It also asks you to do the one thing no page can do for you: prove your own restore.
1.What automatic means here
Self-hosted automatic backups have to earn both words. Automatic means nobody has to remember: backups on Cresdock run themselves, not when you think of it and not when a note on the fridge happens to work. And a backup only counts once it has left the box — a copy sitting next to the thing it protects survives a mistake, but it does not survive the machine.
So Cresdock's backups leave. Each one is sent off the box to a destination you set up once; the next section is the full list. How far away that destination sits is your call — the next room survives a dead disk, another building survives worse. For automatic home server backups in particular the distance matters, because the house is the one point of failure everything in it already shares.
2.Where backups can go
Three kinds of destination, each stated with the plan it comes on — here, rather than discovered at checkout:
| Destination | Included on |
|---|---|
| An FTP server you can reach | Every plan, including the free one |
| An SFTP server you can reach | Every plan, including the free one |
| Any S3-compatible cloud storage | Pro |
Cloud storage is the one paid item on this page. If you want to back up a home server to cloud storage, the destination is an account you hold with any service that speaks the widely-supported S3 standard, and sending backups there needs the Pro plan. The other two are not the lesser option: an SFTP server at a friend's house is a genuinely off-site backup, and it is on every plan.
3.Knowing a backup ran — or didn't
Backup habits rarely fail loudly. They stop quietly — a password changed, a disk filled, a machine switched off — and the gap is found on the day it matters. So Cresdock tells someone: it can send a message to a Slack channel, or to a webhook — a web address of yours that receives a short note other tools can pick up — when backups run and when they fail. Both are on every plan, including the free one.
The honest caveat: a notification only helps if it lands somewhere you actually look. Send it to the channel you read, not the one you made for it — a message about a failed backup that nobody reads fails twice.
4.Prove a restore before you need one
A backup you have never restored is a hope, not a backup. That is true of every backup system ever made, and this page would rather print it than let you learn it during an emergency. Cresdock telling you a backup ran means a backup ran; only you can prove that what arrived restores into something you would want back.
So make the drill part of owning the thing. Every so often, fetch a recent backup from your destination and restore it. If the restore works, you have a backup. If it doesn't, you have found out on a quiet afternoon instead of a bad day — which is the entire point of the exercise.
5.Reinstalling keeps your data
The most common way self-hosters lose data is not a dead disk — it is a fresh start nobody meant. On Cresdock, reinstalling an app keeps its data by default. Erasing is a deliberate, clearly-labelled checkbox, and it stays unticked until you tick it, so reinstalling to shake an app out of a bad state is not a decision to lose anything.
It is the same standing rule that covers updates: your downloads and your media are never touched by an update, a rebuild or a reinstall. That rule is why this page can talk about backups calmly — the defaults are on your side before the first backup exists.
6.Removing an app leaves your files alone
Removing an app takes the app, not what it fetched or played: your downloads and your media are never touched by a removal. The remove dialog also offers to keep the app's settings, so a change of mind later can pick up where it left off rather than starting from nothing.
Say no to that offer and the settings go with the app. The pattern is the same everywhere on this page: the destructive choice exists, and it is always the one you have to ask for deliberately.
7.Common questions
Do automatic backups work on Cresdock's free plan?
Yes. Sending backups to an FTP or SFTP server is on every plan, including the free one, and so are the Slack and webhook messages that tell you a backup ran or failed. The one exception is S3-compatible cloud storage as a destination, which needs the Pro plan.
How do I know my backups actually ran?
Cresdock can send a message to a Slack channel or a webhook when backups run and when they fail. Beyond that, check for yourself now and then: fetch a recent backup from your destination and prove you can restore it. A backup you have never restored is a hope, not a backup — with any system, not just this one.
What happens to my files when I reinstall or remove an app?
Reinstalling an app keeps its data by default — erasing is a deliberate, clearly-labelled checkbox you must tick yourself. Removing an app never touches your downloads or your media, and the remove dialog offers to keep the app's settings for a future reinstall.
8.What works on the free plan
Nearly everything on this page, and the free plan is a real plan rather than a trial — one person, permanent, no card. On it you get backups that run themselves to an FTP or SFTP server, the Slack and webhook messages that tell you they ran or failed, reinstalls that keep an app's data unless you deliberately tick the box that says otherwise, and removals that never touch your downloads or media.
The one thing that waits for Pro is cloud storage as a destination — and nothing above stops working without it. An SFTP destination plus the keep-data defaults is a complete, honest setup for one person's box.
If you want to try it, start free at cresdock.com — set a destination early, then run the restore drill in section 4 once, before you need it.