Copy Shelter and Timeshift, compared

Where Timeshift is the better answer

• You want to undo a bad update. A snapshot taken before a change can put the system back exactly, in minutes.
• You want it free and already packaged. It ships in the repositories of Ubuntu, Fedora, Mint and most other distributions, and needs no account.
• You want snapshots that restore from a live USB. If the system will not boot, Timeshift's snapshots can still be applied from outside it.

Where Copy Shelter is the better answer

• It protects the part Timeshift explicitly excludes. Timeshift's own README says entire home directories are excluded by default, and that including personal files is not recommended because they get overwritten on restore. Copy Shelter's whole job is your files.
• It is encrypted with a key only you hold. Timeshift's snapshots sit on the drive in the open. Copy Shelter encrypts before it writes anywhere.
• It reaches storage a local snapshot cannot. A NAS, a cloud folder you already pay for, or an S3 compatible bucket, beyond a partition on the same machine.
• Every copy is checked. Copy Shelter reads each copy back and verifies it against its own hashes, and tells you when one has fallen behind.

Using both

They solve different failures. Timeshift undoes a system that broke itself. Copy Shelter gets a file back after it was deleted, corrupted, or the whole machine was lost. Running both, for the job each is actually built for, is a reasonable setup.

The question to ask any backup

Can you get a file back today, from the backup as it is now, on a machine that has never seen it? Try it with one file before you need it. Copy Shelter's answer is csctl and the published format.

Common questions

Is Copy Shelter a Timeshift alternative?

No, and Timeshift's own documentation agrees: it protects system files, not personal ones, and says plainly that it is not a backup tool. Copy Shelter protects your files, so the two do different jobs.

Does Timeshift back up my documents and photos?

Not by default, and its own README recommends against including them, since a restore overwrites whatever changed since the snapshot.

Is Timeshift free?

Yes, open source and free, packaged in most Linux distributions' own repositories.

Is Copy Shelter free on Linux?

Yes, for one backup location, with no time limit. Pro adds more locations, older versions and scheduled deep checks, on every platform it runs on.

Timeshift figures are from github.com/linuxmint/timeshift, its own README, read on 19 September 2026. Related: Copy Shelter and Deja Dup, Copy Shelter for Linux.