Summary
TurtleBackup is a simple app for iPhone to backup files from memory cards (e.g. SD or MicroSD). You can backup either to external media (like USB flash drive), or to iPhone internal storage. Combined with USB hub / card reader, it’s a lightweight backup solution for travel / short trips.
Introduction
If you’re a hobby photographer, you might already be familiar with the problem this app is trying to solve. Otherwise, this app might not be relevant to you 🙂
The problem is, backing up photos from an “old-school” camera (I mean, any camera that uses memory cards) during trips (“on the go”) is a bit of a hassle, it requires additional device (say, a laptop) to do it. But even if you have a laptop, you might be asking yourself “do I really need to take it with me on a trip… Just for making backups?”
Well, bringing a computer with you on a trip has its benefits, but it also has downsides (weight, size, potential damage / theft / whatever). So if the only reason for bringing it are photo backups, then there should be a less heavy / bulky way, right?
Solution
If amount of data you need to backup is reasonable (say, few gigabytes a day), you can use your smartphone. Equipped with USB hub / card reader, it can do the job even without any additional software… But I’d say that default “Files” app on iPhone is not very convenient for that purpose.
So I wrote an app, to make the backup process as simple as possible. It makes incremental backups incredibly easy. Here, incremental backup means backing up only new files from the same card to the same backup destination. Before each backup, app scans selected directories, determines which files are already backed up, and which aren’t, and displays a summary. Then you decide if you want to proceed or not. All this just to make sure you’re copying correct files to correct place 🙂
TurtleBackup app also works on an iPad, though user interface is not optimized for such large screen.
Screenshots
Quick Start Guide
You’ll need a compatible USB hub / card reader (newer iPhone or iPad has an USB-C port, so it’s quite straightforward. For older devices with only a Lightning port, it gets more complicated but still doable… Can’t help you with specifics). In this example I’ll assume that hub also has a memory card slot (so it acts as a card reader too).
- Insert your memory card into USB hub’s card slot, connect USB flash drive to the hub, and finally connect the hub to the iPhone or iPad.
- Start the TurtleBackup app
- Select source (e.g. folder on your SD card that you want to backup)
- Select destination (e.g. folder on your USB memory stick, where you want the data to be copied to)
- Click “Check” button to run a quick check
If check was successful, click “Details” button to get an overview about what should happen during actual backup.
If all details look good, click “Run Backup” to start the actual backup.
You can stop the running backup if needed – app will finish copying current file and stop.
If backup was successful, disconnect the the hub from the phone.
Notes:
- matching file in the destination folder is overwritten if it’s size differs from source
- all hidden files are skipped
- extra files that exist only in the destination folder but not in source, are ignored
- no file content comparison is performed during check / backup
- max supported number of files is 10000