Keep your Mac application settings in sync.
Install Dropbox first, it's needed.
On your current Mac:
# Download Mackup
curl -o mackup https://raw.github.com/lra/mackup/master/mackup.py
# Make it executable
chmod +x mackup
# Launch it and back up your files in Dropbox
./mackup backup
You're all set, and constantly backuped from now on.
Next, on any new Mac, install Dropbox and do:
# Download Mackup
curl -o mackup https://raw.github.com/lra/mackup/master/mackup.py
# Make it executable
chmod +x mackup
# Launch it and restore your files from Dropbox
./mackup restore
Done !
# Download Mackup
curl -o mackup https://raw.github.com/lra/mackup/master/mackup.py
# Make it executable
chmod +x mackup
# Copy it to your path
sudo mv mackup /usr/bin/mackup
# Launch it
mackup backup
# Just delete it
sudo rm /usr/bin/mackup
mackup backup
Backup your application settings in Dropbox.
mackup restore
Restore your application settings on a newly installed workstation.
mackup -h
Get some help, obvious...
- Backups your application settings in Dropbox
- Syncs your application settings among all your workstations
- Restores your configuration on any fresh install in one command line
By only tracking pure configuration files, it keeps the crap out of your freshly new installed workstation (No cache, temporary and locally specific files are transfered).
It also helps you spend more time doing real cool stuff, and less time setting you environment.
Let's take git
as an example. Your settings for git
are saved in your home
folder, in the .gitconfig
file.
When you launch mackup backup
, here's what it's really doing:
cp ~/.gitconfig ~/Dropbox/Mackup/.gitconfig
rm ~/.gitconfig
ln -s ~/Dropbox/Mackup/.gitconfig ~/.gitconfig
Now your git
config is always backup and up to date on all your Macs.
When you launch mackup restore
, here's what it's really doing:
ln -s ~/Dropbox/Mackup/.gitconfig ~/.gitconfig
That's it, you got your git
config setup on your new Mac.
mackup
does the same for any supported application.
- Bash
- Boto
- Emacs
- Git
- GnuPG
- LimeChat
- MacOSX
- Mercurial
- Oh My Zsh
- OpenSSH
- Pentadactyl
- Pow
- Rails
- Ruby
- Ruby Version
- S3cmd
- Sequel Pro
- Sublime Text 2
- Subversion
- Vim
- Vimperator
- X11
- XEmacs
- Zsh
You can add your favorite application by forking it and doing a Pull Request.
Open a new issue.
Yesterday, I had a talk with Zach Zaro, complaining about the pain it is to reconfigure our Macbook each time we get a new one or install from scratch. That's a talk we already had months ago.
I change my workstation every X months. Each time I either loose the configuration of all the apps I use, or I just waste a bunch of hours getting setup like I was on my old box. I also spent a lot of time reconfiguring the same stuff again on all my workstations (home, work)
Boring...
Some people tried to solve the problem on the application layer, like Github's Boxen, but I feel like it solves a non problem: I don't really spend time installing stuff, mostly downloading: I spend time configuring it.
For years, I've used a personnal shell script that was copying known config files into Subversion, Git or Dropbox, and linked them into my home. But I felt a lot of us had the same problem: Making a more generic tool could help others and I could get help from others to support more apps in the tool.
So here comes Mackup, the little tool that will sync all your application configs to Dropbox.
And it's GPL of course.
- OS X
Mackup is just a contraction of Mac and Backup, I suck at naming stuff, ok.