# My Mail-In-A-Box solution to backup the 'backup' folder. You may find this helpful!

**URL:** <https://discourse.mailinabox.email/t/my-mail-in-a-box-solution-to-backup-the-backup-folder-you-may-find-this-helpful/12661>\
**Category:** uncategorized\
**Created:** [February 4, 2025, 4:09pm UTC](https://discourse.mailinabox.email/t/my-mail-in-a-box-solution-to-backup-the-backup-folder-you-may-find-this-helpful/12661 "2025-02-04T16:09:32Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 10\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![MXDNS](https://discourse.mailinabox.email/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/c67d28/32.png) [@MXDNS](https://discourse.mailinabox.email/u/MXDNS)\
**Post date:** [February 4, 2025, 4:09pm UTC](https://discourse.mailinabox.email/t/my-mail-in-a-box-solution-to-backup-the-backup-folder-you-may-find-this-helpful/12661/1 "2025-02-04T16:09:32Z")

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Hi all,

I just wanted to share with you all my backup solution. I’m new to MIAB, but this works quite well, and it’s cost effective.

Instead of backing up to Amazon or BackBlaze, I decided to purchase [ChronoSync](https://www.econtechnologies.com/chronosync/overview.html) for my Mac Mini. It allows me to connect to my VPS securely using my SSH certificate and it syncs the `/home/user-data/backup` folder daily at 4:00am. Mail-In-A-Box backup runs daily sometime after midnight, so I figured 4:00am is a good time.

In addition to backing up daily, I only have MIAB settingsto keep 2 retention days of backups. _Why?_ ChronoSync will not delete older backups locally _unless_ I have the “sync deletion” box checked, which I don’t. My plan is to go into my local NAS folder once a month and delete old backups.

_ **Don’t have a Mac?** _ No problem! I only switched from Windows to Mac late 2024. Before Mac, I was using [SyncBackPro](https://www.2brightsparks.com/syncback/sbpro.html?srsltid=AfmBOoot8P1mUGcCEezLs_2lWmOknCvtHwT8O8Vg9HQdssmjrccz6Dhz) for my Windows backup needs. They too offer SFTP support. This should work the same as ChronoSync, but I can’t be certain. I only had SyncBackSE version and never had the Pro version to test SFTP.

Both software are one-time purchase and not a subscription. I was very happy to pay $50 today for ChronoSync after testing it for the last 5 or 6 days. It works really well!

I have a 60TB NAS in the house. This is where I’m having ChronoSync backup to. From there, I have my entire NAS being backed up to BackBlaze home version. I think I should be all set now for data protection 😃

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**Author:** ![miabuser](https://discourse.mailinabox.email/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/eb9ed0/32.png) [@miabuser](https://discourse.mailinabox.email/u/miabuser)\
**Post date:** [February 5, 2025, 9:36am UTC](https://discourse.mailinabox.email/t/my-mail-in-a-box-solution-to-backup-the-backup-folder-you-may-find-this-helpful/12661/2 "2025-02-05T09:36:17Z")

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I don’t want to diminish your solution, and if it works for you, then of course it’s fine. But for other users reading this, most NAS systems have built-in solutions like Rsync, Rclone or similar tools that allow you to pull files directly from remote systems via SSH. So it would probably be easier, less error prone and cheaper to let the NAS pull the backups directly than to use a paid software on your desktop computer as a ‘man in the middle’ solution 😉

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**Author:** ![MXDNS](https://discourse.mailinabox.email/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/c67d28/32.png) [@MXDNS](https://discourse.mailinabox.email/u/MXDNS)\
**Post date:** [February 5, 2025, 12:43pm UTC](https://discourse.mailinabox.email/t/my-mail-in-a-box-solution-to-backup-the-backup-folder-you-may-find-this-helpful/12661/3 "2025-02-05T12:43:13Z")

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Yes, I tried that. However, Synology’s Rsync solution is only to sync another NAS on the same network.

Other NAS may work, but Synology will not. So, my solution above is what I came up with. And not to mention, not everyone has a NAS. My solution above may work for those folks.

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**Author:** ![netmaster48](https://discourse.mailinabox.email/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/n/82dd89/32.png) [@netmaster48](https://discourse.mailinabox.email/u/netmaster48)\
**Post date:** [February 5, 2025, 1:37pm UTC](https://discourse.mailinabox.email/t/my-mail-in-a-box-solution-to-backup-the-backup-folder-you-may-find-this-helpful/12661/4 "2025-02-05T13:37:11Z")

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In Synology you can run rsync service and “push” files from MIAB there. It is ordinary linux compatible rsync there what can be used for anything.

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**Author:** ![miabuser](https://discourse.mailinabox.email/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/eb9ed0/32.png) [@miabuser](https://discourse.mailinabox.email/u/miabuser)\
**Post date:** [February 5, 2025, 2:27pm UTC](https://discourse.mailinabox.email/t/my-mail-in-a-box-solution-to-backup-the-backup-folder-you-may-find-this-helpful/12661/5 "2025-02-05T14:27:19Z")

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That would be a way to achieve this, but I peronally much prefer my NAS to pull the backups over SSH, becuase for MiaB be able to push it, you would need to open ports and make the Rsync service publicly available (unless you’re using something like Tailscale or Wireguard), which isn’t probably that great of an idea security-wise, especially with the recent Rsync vurnabilities in mind. 😉

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![MXDNS](https://discourse.mailinabox.email/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/c67d28/32.png) [@MXDNS](https://discourse.mailinabox.email/u/MXDNS)\
**Post date:** [February 5, 2025, 3:41pm UTC](https://discourse.mailinabox.email/t/my-mail-in-a-box-solution-to-backup-the-backup-folder-you-may-find-this-helpful/12661/6 "2025-02-05T15:41:03Z")

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That’s a good thought! Thanks for sharing. Yes, I am going to keep it the way I have setup. It’s more secure since ChronoSync uses SFTP and uses my SSH private key.

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**Author:** ![eXTric](https://discourse.mailinabox.email/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/e/bb73d2/32.png) [@eXTric](https://discourse.mailinabox.email/u/eXTric)\
**Post date:** [February 5, 2025, 9:23pm UTC](https://discourse.mailinabox.email/t/my-mail-in-a-box-solution-to-backup-the-backup-folder-you-may-find-this-helpful/12661/7 "2025-02-05T21:23:58Z")

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If you have a synology nas, there is a UI friendly solution using active backup for business

> [@Backups: error in rsync protocol data stream (code 12)](https://discourse.mailinabox.email/t/backups-error-in-rsync-protocol-data-stream-code-12/11243/11):
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> Hello, you use Active Backup for business to save your miab server to the syno? you use the pub ssh key given in admin\_backup of the server. i have an error with, about the ssh pub key, you just copy into a text file? Best

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**Author:** ![mokiejovis](https://discourse.mailinabox.email/user_avatar/discourse.mailinabox.email/mokiejovis/32/1999_2.png) [@mokiejovis](https://discourse.mailinabox.email/u/mokiejovis)\
**Post date:** [February 6, 2025, 12:25pm UTC](https://discourse.mailinabox.email/t/my-mail-in-a-box-solution-to-backup-the-backup-folder-you-may-find-this-helpful/12661/8 "2025-02-06T12:25:02Z")

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I’m using `lftp` to push from the MiaB to a homelab server at my house. It’s as simple as a daily cron entry:

` /usr/bin/lftp -e "mirror -c -e -R --parallel=4 --verbose /home/user-data/backup/;quit;" -u mailinabox, sftp://redacted.com:/ > /tmp/lftp.log 2>&1`

It is set-it-and-forget-it.

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**Author:** ![Keith\_Rettig](https://discourse.mailinabox.email/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/k/3bc359/32.png) [@Keith\_Rettig](https://discourse.mailinabox.email/u/Keith_Rettig)\
**Post date:** [September 25, 2025, 9:08am UTC](https://discourse.mailinabox.email/t/my-mail-in-a-box-solution-to-backup-the-backup-folder-you-may-find-this-helpful/12661/9 "2025-09-25T09:08:40Z")

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In what format do I save this line to make it usable by a cron job? This is the part I have never understood about Linux…

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![mokiejovis](https://discourse.mailinabox.email/user_avatar/discourse.mailinabox.email/mokiejovis/32/1999_2.png) [@mokiejovis](https://discourse.mailinabox.email/u/mokiejovis)\
**Post date:** [September 25, 2025, 10:27am UTC](https://discourse.mailinabox.email/t/my-mail-in-a-box-solution-to-backup-the-backup-folder-you-may-find-this-helpful/12661/10 "2025-09-25T10:27:32Z")

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You have two options: put it in root’s crontab, or put that into a script file in `/etc/cron.daily`.

Note that whatever option you choose, you’ll have to update that command to choose the destination sever & path.

1. Put it in crontab

As root, run `crontab -e`. This uses your default editor to edit the file.

Basics on cron entries: [https://ostechnix.com/a-beginners-guide-to-cron-jobs/](https://ostechnix.com/a-beginners-guide-to-cron-jobs/)

1. Put it in `/etc/cron.daily`

Paste that line into a text file in `/etc/cron.daily`. Name the file whatever you like. Use `chmod a+x` to mark it as executable.