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Managing Backup Policies in the Dashboard

Summary:

As a Carbonite Safe Backup Pro Administrator, you can manage backup policies for each of the Windows computers that are associated with your Carbonite account. Backup Policies are not currently available for Mac computers.

Backup policies can only be applied to backups that are enabled and connected to the internet.

This article applies to:

Carbonite Plans	Products	Platforms
Core, Power, and Ultimate* (Not sure?)	Safe Pro (Not sure?)	Windows

*If you don't have one of these plans, you cannot manage backup policies. Please upgrade to a supported Carbonite Safe Backup Pro plan to make these changes.

Solution:

In order to manage your backup policies please sign into your account at https://account.carbonite.com or with the button below.

Within your account, click Manage Backup Policies to view and manage any backup policies that exist on your account.

The sections below are collapsed. Please click the section title to open / close a particular section.

Adding a Policy

You can add a new policy by clicking the Add a new policy button in the Manage Backup Policies page of your account.

Carbonite Safe Backup Pro Administrator Portal: Add a new policy

You can click Duplicate on an existing backup policy to use it as a template for a new policy.

In the next section, you can view the Edit a Backup Policy window and the available options for backup policy configuration.

Edit a Policy

You can edit a policy by clicking Edit next to a policy name.

You cannot edit the Carbonite Default policy. However, you can Duplicate it and use it as a template for a new policy.

After you are in the Edit a Backup Policy window, you can name the policy, set the backup defaults, backup specific folders, and exclude specific file types in the policy.

Setting a Name

Choose a name that best describes the backup policy and is no longer than 100 characters.

Carbonite Safe Backup Pro Administrator Portal: What do you want to call this policy?

After the policy is named, you can select the user folders that will be backed up by default.

Selecting User Folders for Backup

Select the boxes to add folders to the backup policy. When a folder is selected, the policy selects the folders for each user on the computer.

Carbonite Safe Backup Pro Administrator Portal: What do you want to back up by default?

User Folder	Location on Computer
Desktop	C:\Users\[User]\Desktop
My Documents	C:\Users\[User]\Documents
Outlook Data (default Outlook location)	C:\Users\[User]\Documents\Outlook Files
My Pictures	C:\Users\[User]\Pictures
My Music	C:\Users\[User]\Music
My Videos	C:\Users\[User]\Videos

The options listed here only represent the folders not the type of files. For example, if you have a picture on the Desktop and only My Pictures folder is selected, Carbonite will not automatically select the picture in that location.

Some users may create shortcuts to critical folders, which may be inaccessible by Carbonite to backup. To protect these folders, please check with your users to ensure that the actual path to these locations is selected by the policy.

Backup policies automatically select the locations specified, but users can manually select individual files and folders that are outside of the default backup selections you specify.

To remove a user folder from the backup, remove the checkbox from the folder.

Selecting Additional Folders to the Backup

Specify the file paths for additional folders that you want to add to the backup policy in the text box.

Carbonite Safe Backup Pro Administrator Portal: To back up folders that are not shown above, enter the path to each of them here

Each path should be added per line. If you need to add another, click Add another to use the next text box to add another file path.

You can also use * as a wildcard to add folders that exist in multiple locations. For example, enter "C:\Users\*\Company Files\" if each user on the computer has their own "Company Files" folder in their user folder.

If your folder name contains unusual characters, symbols, or certain punctuation marks, you may encounter a "Not a valid file path" error. Several characters are restricted when creating backup policies, although all alphanumeric characters and most punctuation are accepted. If you see this error, replace the unusual character(s) with a * wildcard. This will allow the rule and apply it to the intended folder(s).

Excluding File Types

You can exclude multiple file types by their extension and separate them by commas.

If you exclude a file type, the files will not be backed up if the user folder checkbox has been selected.

Carbonite Safe Backup Pro Administrator Portal: Do you want to exclude specific file types?

Click Music, Pictures, or Videos to add a list of known file types for each category to the exclusion text box.

By default, Carbonite excludes system and temporary files from your backup.

After you have configured the backup policy, click Save settings.

Deleting a Policy

You can delete unwanted backup policies.

To delete a policy, click Edit on the associated policy.

Carbonite Safe Backup Pro Administrator Portal: Edit policy

Scroll to the bottom of the policy and click Delete this policy.

Carbonite Safe Backup Pro Administrator Portal: Delete Backup Policy

You will be prompted to confirm the deletion of the backup policy.

If the policy you are deleting is assigned to one or more backups, you will be prompted to reassign a new backup policy for all the computers that have the policy selected. The reassigned backup policy will go into effect within 24 hours for these computers.

After confirming, the backup policy will be deleted.

Changing a Policy

You can assign backup policies for each of the Windows computers that are associated with your Carbonite account by signing in at https://account.carbonite.com or with the button below.

Within the Backup Dashboard, use the dropdown menu for the desired computers to select the backup policy that you want to apply to the computer.

Carbonite Safe Backup Pro Administrator Portal: Select Backup Policy

After selecting a new backup policy, the changes will go into effect within 24 hours. When a custom policy is active on a computer, the option to include Carbonite's default backup selections will not appear within the Settings & controls page.

When applied, backup policies take priority over manual backup selections and inclusions. Users can add and remove files and folders for their individual backup after a policy has been applied, but cannot override the inclusions or exclusions defined by their assigned backup policy.