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Idrive Backup

  • 30 installs
  • 154 repo stars
  • Updated July 30, 2026
  • sammcj/agentic-coding

Helps with ai & agent building tasks.

About

idrive-backup is a Claude Code skill for ai & agent building. It helps solo builders move faster with AI-assisted development.

  • idrive-backup
  • AI & Agent Building
  • AI-coding skill

Idrive Backup by the numbers

  • 30 all-time installs (skills.sh)
  • +1 installs in the week ending Jul 26, 2026 (Skillselion tracking)
  • Ranked #9,223 of 16,556 AI & Agent Building skills by installs in the Skillselion catalog
  • Data as of Aug 1, 2026 (Skillselion catalog sync)
npx skills add https://github.com/sammcj/agentic-coding --skill idrive-backup

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Listed on Skillselion
Installs30
repo stars154
Last updatedJuly 30, 2026
Repositorysammcj/agentic-coding

What it does

Helps with ai & agent building tasks.

Files

SKILL.mdMarkdownGitHub ↗

iDrive Backup for macOS

iDrive stores all configuration at ~/Library/Application Support/IDriveforMac/. The username is the iDrive account email (e.g. user@example.com), detected from the top-level key in appDefaultSettings.plist.

The Tool

This skill bundles scripts/idrive_tool.py which handles all iDrive operations with correct matching semantics, symlink resolution, and safety backups. Run it with:

python3 <skill-path>/scripts/idrive_tool.py <command> [args...]

Commands

CommandDescription
check-exclusion <path>Check if a path is excluded and by which rules. Reports backup scope too
check-scope <path>Check if a path falls under any backup reference path
list-exclusions [--category <name>]List exclusion entries. Categories: Default, Partial File, User Profile, User Specified, Propagated
add-exclusion <path>Add absolute path to User Specified exclusions (auto-backups config first)
remove-exclusion <path>Remove path from User Specified exclusions
show-settingsDisplay all scalar settings with current values
set-setting <key> <value>Modify a setting (auto-detects type from existing value)
account-statusShow quota, usage, encryption type, plan, app version
last-backupParse recent LOGXML files and show backup status/results
find-redundantFind exclusion paths made redundant by a parent path in any map
clean-redundantRemove redundant entries from User Specified exclusions
list-backup-pathsList all online backup reference paths
add-backup-path <path>Add a directory to backup reference
remove-backup-path <path>Remove a directory from backup reference
backup-configCreate timestamped backup copies of config files

Safety Rules

1. Back up before modifying. The tool does this automatically. Manual changes must copy both appDefaultSettings.plist and <username>/backupReferenceFile.plist to ~/.idrive-backup/backups/ with timestamps first. 2. Only modify User Specified exclusions. The other four maps (Default, Partial File, User Profile, Propagated) are system-managed and will be overwritten by iDrive. 3. Preserve plist key quirks exactly. Two keys have trailing spaces: ShowHiddenFilesKey and PowerAfterScheduledJob . One has a typo: NotifyFaiulreValue. The editable exclusion map key is User specified Exclusion (lowercase 's'). Getting any of these wrong creates orphaned keys. 4. Never modify IDLoginDetails.plist, Sync.plist, LDB_NEW/*.ib databases, or anything under Operation/ (root-owned daemon files). 5. Exclusion values are always int(1). Presence in the map means excluded. Never write a 0 value; delete the key instead. 6. All User Specified paths must be absolute. No tildes, no trailing slashes, no relative paths.

Five Exclusion Maps

MapPlist KeyCountMatchingEditable
DefaultDefault Exclusion~24Exact/parent pathNo
Partial FilePartial File Exclusion~41Substring of full path OR exact filenameNo
User ProfileUser Profile Default Exclusion~7Exact/parent pathNo
User SpecifiedUser specified Exclusion100-2000+Exact/parent pathYes
PropagatedPropagated Files ExclusionUsually 0Exact/parent pathNo (web console)

Partial File Exclusion is substring-based. This is the trickiest map. A pattern like .cache matches both /Users/foo/.cache and /path/to/download_cache. Patterns are relative names (never absolute paths), including dotfile dirs (.git, .venv), filename patterns (fp16.bin, safetensors), and one with a separator (pkg/mod).

Key Gotchas

1. Mixed boolean types. Some settings use <true/>/<false/>, others use <integer>0</integer>/<integer>1</integer> for the same concept. The tool handles this; if modifying manually, match the existing type. 2. Symlinks/firmlinks. ~/Desktop may resolve to ~/Library/Mobile Documents/com~apple~CloudDocs/Desktop when iCloud Desktop is enabled. Always resolve with os.path.realpath() before comparing paths. 3. CDP log filenames have a leading space. iDrive bug: Continuous Data Protection logs in SessionLogsNew/Backup/ are named MM-DD-YYYY-00-00-00 (note leading space). Account for this when globbing or reading. 4. Some files are root-owned. Operation/Backup/IBThrottle, LDB_NEW/*.ib, and some plists are written by the iDrive daemon as root. Reading is fine; writing requires elevated privileges you shouldn't use. 5. The appDefaultSettings.plist can be large. User Specified Exclusion alone can have 1,800+ entries (mostly auto-populated ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.* paths). The plist file can exceed 170 KB.

Detailed Reference

For detailed file format information, all 22+ scalar settings with types and descriptions, secondary file formats (logs, size files, sync config), or the complete directory layout, read references/idrive-config.md.

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