🧩 Python Automation Recipes – 🗂️ Folder Backup Automation

Posted on: December 29, 2025

Description:

📌 Introduction

Backing up important folders manually is easy to forget and hard to keep consistent.

This automation recipe shows how to zip an entire folder and store it as a timestamped backup using Python.

It’s ideal for backing up:

project directories
documents
configuration folders
daily work snapshots

All without any external libraries.

🔎 Explanation

The script uses shutil.make_archive() to create a ZIP file.
A timestamp is appended to the backup name so each run creates a unique archive.
You define:
- the folder to back up
- the destination backup directory
The result is a clean, versioned backup you can run manually or schedule later.

This is one of the most common real-world automations developers rely on.

✅ Key Takeaways

🗂️ Automate folder backups in seconds.
⏱️ Timestamped archives prevent overwrites.
📦 Uses only Python’s standard library — no dependencies.

Code Snippet:

import shutil
from pathlib import Path
from datetime import datetime

# --- Step 1: Configure paths ---

# Folder you want to back up
SOURCE_FOLDER = Path("/Users/abhijith/Documents/my_project")  # 🔁 change this

# Where backups should be stored
BACKUP_FOLDER = Path("/Users/abhijith/Documents/backups")     # 🔁 change this

# Ensure backup directory exists
BACKUP_FOLDER.mkdir(parents=True, exist_ok=True)

# --- Step 2: Generate timestamp ---
timestamp = datetime.now().strftime("%Y-%m-%d_%H-%M-%S")

# Backup file name (without extension)
backup_name = f"{SOURCE_FOLDER.name}_backup_{timestamp}"

# Full output path (without .zip)
backup_path = BACKUP_FOLDER / backup_name

# --- Step 3: Create ZIP archive ---
shutil.make_archive(
    base_name=str(backup_path),
    format="zip",
    root_dir=SOURCE_FOLDER
)

print(f"✅ Backup created successfully:")
print(f"📦 {backup_path}.zip")

← →	move
↑	rotate
↓	soft drop
Space	hard drop
P	pause / resume

🧩 Python Automation Recipes – 🗂️ Folder Backup Automation

Description:

📌 Introduction

🔎 Explanation

✅ Key Takeaways

Code Snippet:

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