Changelog for restic 0.19.0 (2026-06-09)

The following sections list the changes in restic 0.19.0 relevant to restic users. The changes are ordered by importance.

Summary

• Fix #2034: Support serving a restic mount of a Windows system via Samba
• Fix #4447: Use mode 0700 for repository directories created over SFTP
• Fix #4467: Exit with code 3 when some backup source paths do not exist
• Fix #4759: Error out when environment variables hold invalid values
• Fix #5233: Return exit code 3 when failing to remove snapshots
• Fix #5258: Exit with code 130 on SIGINT
• Fix #5280: Reject impossible find time bounds immediately
• Fix #5280: Make find --pack list blobs for tree packs
• Fix #5354: Allow rclone and sftp backends when running in background
• Fix #5427: Correctly restore ACL inheritance state on Windows
• Fix #5477: Password prompt was sometimes not shown for backup -v
• Fix #5487: Mark repository files read-only when using the SFTP backend
• Fix #5586: Correctly handle snapshots --group-by with --latest
• Fix #5595: Avoid spurious chmod errors on certain file backends
• Fix #5683: Prevent backup --stdin-from-command from hanging
• Fix #5757: Respect --user and --host in key passwd
• Fix #21820: Correct handling of duplicate index entries
• Fix #21820: Correctly handle pack files missing from the index
• Chg #5293: Prune small packfiles more aggressively
• Chg #5767: Prevent excluding paths explicitly passed to backup
• Chg #21791: Update dependencies and require Go 1.25 or newer
• Enh #3326: Limit check to snapshots selected by filters
• Enh #3572: Support restoring ownership by name on UNIX systems
• Enh #3738: Optional GitHub token for self-update API requests
• Enh #4278: Support include filters in the rewrite command
• Enh #4728: Support zstd compression levels fastest and better
• Enh #4868: Include repository ID in the filesystem name used by mount
• Enh #5175: Add status counters to copy in verbose text output
• Enh #5352: Support excluding cloud-backed files on macOS
• Enh #5383: Reduce progress bar refresh rates to decrease energy usage
• Enh #5424: Enable Windows filesystem privileges before file access
• Enh #5440: Make --host override environment variable RESTIC_HOST
• Enh #5448: Support configuring nice and ionice in the Docker image
• Enh #5453: Copy multiple snapshots in batches
• Enh #5523: Add Open Container Initiative labels to release Docker image
• Enh #5531: Reduce Azure storage costs by optimizing uploads
• Enh #5562: Rewrite only changed status lines each frame
• Enh #5588: Show timezone context in snapshots output
• Enh #5610: Reduce check, copy, diff and stats memory usage
• Enh #5689: Show more detailed progress for stats
• Enh #5713: Significantly speed up index loading
• Enh #5718: Stricter and earlier validation of the mount point

Details

• Bugfix [#2034]: Support serving a restic mount of a Windows system via Samba

A repository mounted using restic mount on a POSIX system could not use Samba to serve files from backups of Windows systems, while backups of non-Windows systems could be served successfully. This has now been fixed.

[#2034](https://github.com/restic/restic/issues/2034) [#4382](https://github.com/restic/restic/issues/4382) [#21784](https://github.com/restic/restic/pull/21784)

• Bugfix [#4447]: Use mode 0700 for repository directories created over SFTP

When creating a repository over SFTP, restic created the repository directories with the SFTP server's default permissions, often 0755, rather than the 0700 permissions it uses for local repositories.

Restic now creates these directories with 0700 permissions.

[#4447](https://github.com/restic/restic/issues/4447) [#21817](https://github.com/restic/restic/pull/21817)

• Bugfix [#4467]: Exit with code 3 when some backup source paths do not exist

Restic used to exit with code 0 when a top-level backup source path was missing, and exited with code 3 only when a child path under an existing source did not exist. Scripts that relied on the exit code could therefore treat an incomplete backup as success.

Restic now exits with code 3 when any backup source path does not exist.

[#4467](https://github.com/restic/restic/issues/4467) [#5347](https://github.com/restic/restic/pull/5347)

• Bugfix [#4759]: Error out when environment variables hold invalid values

If the environment variables RESTIC_COMPRESSION, RESTIC_PACK_SIZE, or RESTIC_READ_CONCURRENCY could not be parsed, restic used to ignore them. Restic now fails with an error unless the same setting is overridden on the command line.

[#4759](https://github.com/restic/restic/issues/4759) [#5592](https://github.com/restic/restic/pull/5592) [#5700](https://github.com/restic/restic/pull/5700)

• Bugfix [#5233]: Return exit code 3 when failing to remove snapshots

Previously, the forget command returned exit code 0 when it failed to remove one or more snapshots. This was misleading to scripts.

The forget command now instead returns exit code 3 when failing to remove one or more snapshots.

[#5233](https://github.com/restic/restic/issues/5233) [#5322](https://github.com/restic/restic/pull/5322)

• Bugfix [#5258]: Exit with code 130 on SIGINT

Restic used to return exit code 1 on SIGINT. It now returns 130, the usual convention for a process stopped by Ctrl-C.

[#5258](https://github.com/restic/restic/issues/5258) [#5363](https://github.com/restic/restic/pull/5363)

• Bugfix [#5280]: Reject impossible find time bounds immediately

The find command now fails with an error when both --oldest and --newest are set and --oldest is later than --newest.

[#5280](https://github.com/restic/restic/issues/5280) [#5310](https://github.com/restic/restic/pull/5310)

• Bugfix [#5280]: Make find --pack list blobs for tree packs

The find --pack <tree-pack> command now also reports blobs for packs that only contain tree blobs.

[#5280](https://github.com/restic/restic/issues/5280) [#5664](https://github.com/restic/restic/pull/5664)

• Bugfix [#5354]: Allow rclone and sftp backends when running in background

Previously, starting restic in the background could result in unexpected behavior when using the rclone or sftp backends. For example, restic -r rclone:./example --insecure-no-password init & could cause the calling bash shell to exit unexpectedly.

This has now been fixed.

[#5354](https://github.com/restic/restic/issues/5354) [#5358](https://github.com/restic/restic/pull/5358) [#5493](https://github.com/restic/restic/pull/5493) [#5494](https://github.com/restic/restic/pull/5494)

• Bugfix [#5427]: Correctly restore ACL inheritance state on Windows

Since security descriptor backups were added in restic 0.17.0, Access Control Entry inheritance was not restored correctly on Windows; restored permissions were always marked as explicit (not inherited) even when they were inherited from a parent folder.

The inheritance flags are now correctly applied when restoring the security descriptor, preserving the original permission structure.

[#5427](https://github.com/restic/restic/issues/5427) [#5465](https://github.com/restic/restic/pull/5465)

• Bugfix [#5477]: Password prompt was sometimes not shown for backup -v

The repository password prompt could be hidden when running the backup -v command. This has now been fixed.

[#5477](https://github.com/restic/restic/issues/5477) [#5554](https://github.com/restic/restic/pull/5554)

• Bugfix [#5487]: Mark repository files read-only when using the SFTP backend

Files created through the SFTP backend previously stayed writable. New files now get read-only permissions where the server supports chmod.

[#5487](https://github.com/restic/restic/issues/5487) [#5497](https://github.com/restic/restic/pull/5497)

• Bugfix [#5586]: Correctly handle snapshots --group-by with --latest

For the snapshots command, --latest did not interact correctly with a non-default --group-by value. This combination now behaves as intended.

[#5586](https://github.com/restic/restic/issues/5586) [#5601](https://github.com/restic/restic/pull/5601)

• Bugfix [#5595]: Avoid spurious chmod errors on certain file backends

On filesystems that do not support chmod (for example CIFS or FUSE-mounted WebDAV), restic since version 0.18.0 failed to remove stale locks, throwing the error chmod ...: operation not supported. This has now been fixed.

[#5595](https://github.com/restic/restic/issues/5595) [#5596](https://github.com/restic/restic/pull/5596)

• Bugfix [#5683]: Prevent backup --stdin-from-command from hanging

When using --stdin-from-command, the backup command could hang until manually cancelled if the backup stopped before all subprocess output was consumed, for example after a failed upload to the repository. This has now been fixed.

[#5683](https://github.com/restic/restic/issues/5683) [#21829](https://github.com/restic/restic/pull/21829)

• Bugfix [#5757]: Respect --user and --host in key passwd

The key passwd command previously ignored the --user and --host options and always stored the new key with the current user and host name. These options are now honored.

[#5757](https://github.com/restic/restic/issues/5757) [#21781](https://github.com/restic/restic/pull/21781)

• Bugfix [#21820]: Correct handling of duplicate index entries

Before restic 0.10.0, a bug could, in very rare cases, split information about a pack file across multiple index files.

Since restic 0.17.0, any operation that rewrites the index (like prune or repair packs) could lose part of that information, resulting in errors in later check or prune runs. This can be fixed by running repair packs, and only repositories using repository format version 1 might be affected.

Split pack index entries are no longer lost during index rewrites. The check command now reports these cases as errors that can be fixed using the repair packs command. On older restic versions, running repair index twice also fixes the problem.

[#21820](https://github.com/restic/restic/issues/21820) [#21828](https://github.com/restic/restic/pull/21828)

• Bugfix [#21820]: Correctly handle pack files missing from the index

The repair packs command was unable to salvage blobs from a pack file if the pack file was not contained in the index or the index entry was incomplete.

The command now uses information from both the index and the pack file header.

[#21820](https://github.com/restic/restic/issues/21820) [#21827](https://github.com/restic/restic/pull/21827)

• Change [#5293]: Prune small packfiles more aggressively

The prune command now repacks more small packfiles by default. The option --repack-small is no longer needed and has been marked as deprecated. The --repack-smaller-than option can still be used to further control repacking of small pack files.

[#5293](https://github.com/restic/restic/issues/5293) [#21803](https://github.com/restic/restic/pull/21803)

• Change [#5767]: Prevent excluding paths explicitly passed to backup

When e.g. restic backup --exclude-if-present .git /home/user/data was run and /home/user/.git existed, restic excluded the data directory from the snapshot. The same applied to --exclude-caches or --one-file-system.

Similarly, restic backup --exclude-larger-than 1M large-file.bin produced an empty snapshot when the file was larger than one megabyte.

The backup command now tracks which files and directories were specified on the command line and does not apply excludes to those paths. Content inside a backed-up directory is still filtered by excludes as before.

[#5767](https://github.com/restic/restic/issues/5767) [#21797](https://github.com/restic/restic/pull/21797)

• Change [#21791]: Update dependencies and require Go 1.25 or newer

Dependencies have been updated. Building restic now requires Go 1.25 or newer. The Windows build with Go 1.26 was also fixed.

[#21791](https://github.com/restic/restic/issues/21791) [#5619](https://github.com/restic/restic/pull/5619) [#21796](https://github.com/restic/restic/pull/21796)

• Enhancement [#3326]: Limit check to snapshots selected by filters

The check command can now restrict pack verification to snapshots chosen with the usual snapshot filters (--tag, --host, --path, or explicit snapshot IDs on the command line).

[#3326](https://github.com/restic/restic/issues/3326) [#5469](https://github.com/restic/restic/pull/5469) [#5644](https://github.com/restic/restic/pull/5644)

• Enhancement [#3572]: Support restoring ownership by name on UNIX systems

The restore command used to restore file ownership on UNIX systems by UID and GID. It now supports restoring ownership by user and group name with --ownership-by-name, so that snapshots can be restored on systems where numeric IDs do not match those on the backup host.

Note: POSIX ACLs are still restored by numeric value; this change does not add ACL-by-name support.

[#3572](https://github.com/restic/restic/issues/3572) [#5449](https://github.com/restic/restic/pull/5449)

• Enhancement [#3738]: Optional GitHub token for self-update API requests

The self-update command used only unauthenticated GitHub API requests when checking for releases. Shared IP addresses could hit the GitHub rate limit, resulting in a 403 Forbidden error and preventing updates.

Unauthenticated requests remain the default, but authenticated requests are now possible. Set the environment variable GITHUB_ACCESS_TOKEN to a GitHub personal access token to avoid rate-limit failures.

[#3738](https://github.com/restic/restic/issues/3738) [#5568](https://github.com/restic/restic/pull/5568)

• Enhancement [#4278]: Support include filters in the rewrite command

The rewrite command now accepts the same include filter options as the restore command (--include, --include-file, --iinclude, --iinclude-file, and short -i). Include and exclude filter options are mutually exclusive.

[#4278](https://github.com/restic/restic/issues/4278) [#5191](https://github.com/restic/restic/pull/5191)

• Enhancement [#4728]: Support zstd compression levels fastest and better

Restic now supports the zstd compression modes fastest and better. Set the environment variable RESTIC_COMPRESSION to fastest or better, or pass the same values with the --compression option.

[#4728](https://github.com/restic/restic/issues/4728) [#5321](https://github.com/restic/restic/pull/5321)

• Enhancement [#4868]: Include repository ID in the filesystem name used by mount

The filesystem exposed by the mount command now includes the repository ID in its name. The ID is printed when opening a repository or can be read with restic cat config.

$ df ./test-mount/ Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on restic:d3b07384d1 0 0 0 - /mnt/my-restic-repo

[#4868](https://github.com/restic/restic/issues/4868) [#5243](https://github.com/restic/restic/pull/5243)

• Enhancement [#5175]: Add status counters to copy in verbose text output

The copy command now prints additional counters in text mode when --verbose is set: blobs to copy, their on-disk size, and the number of pack files read from the source repository.

[#5175](https://github.com/restic/restic/issues/5175) [#5319](https://github.com/restic/restic/pull/5319)

• Enhancement [#5352]: Support excluding cloud-backed files on macOS

Previously, restic treated cloud-backed files (such as files stored on iCloud) like normal local files, forcing a full download of placeholders and other "meant to be cloud only" content during backups.

The backup command now supports --exclude-cloud-files (previously only available on Windows) to skip those files on supported macOS versions. From Sonoma (macOS 14.0) onward the option can prevent unwanted downloads. Older macOS versions will still download the files during a backup run.

[#5352](https://github.com/restic/restic/issues/5352) [#5370](https://github.com/restic/restic/pull/5370)

• Enhancement [#5383]: Reduce progress bar refresh rates to decrease energy usage

Progress bars were previously updated at 60 frames per second, which could cause high CPU or GPU usage in some terminal emulators.

The refresh rate is now 10 FPS to conserve energy. For some terminal emulators, the lower rate is also necessary to allow selecting text in the terminal.

[#5383](https://github.com/restic/restic/issues/5383) [#5551](https://github.com/restic/restic/pull/5551) [#5626](https://github.com/restic/restic/pull/5626)

• Enhancement [#5424]: Enable Windows filesystem privileges before file access

Restic used to enable some Windows filesystem privileges only while reading or writing security descriptors. Extended attributes could therefore be read before enabling the backup privilege, possibly resulting in missed data or errors.

Restic now enables the relevant filesystem privileges before any file access.

[#5424](https://github.com/restic/restic/pull/5424)

• Enhancement [#5440]: Make --host override environment variable RESTIC_HOST

Previously, when the environment variable RESTIC_HOST was set, snapshot listings and other operations were always filtered to that host.

Passing --host as an empty string (--host="" or --host=) now overrides RESTIC_HOST and shows snapshots from all hosts.

The same override applies to other commands that support snapshot filters, including snapshots, forget, find, stats, copy, tag, repair snapshots, rewrite, mount, restore, dump, and ls.

[#5440](https://github.com/restic/restic/issues/5440) [#5541](https://github.com/restic/restic/pull/5541)

• Enhancement [#5448]: Support configuring nice and ionice in the Docker image

The container entrypoint now reads optional scheduling hints from the environment:

• The environment variable NICE sets the process nice value (see man nice).

• The environment variable IONICE_CLASS selects the I/O scheduling class (see man ionice). Real-time classes need the SYS_NICE capability added to the container.

• The environment variable IONICE_PRIORITY sets the priority within IONICE_CLASS and has no effect unless IONICE_CLASS is set; it defaults to 4 (neutral priority).

For further details, please see: https://restic.readthedocs.io/en/stable/020_installation.html#docker-container

[#5448](https://github.com/restic/restic/pull/5448)

• Enhancement [#5453]: Copy multiple snapshots in batches

The copy command used to copy snapshots one at a time, even when doing so produced pack files smaller than the target pack size. This led to many small files when copying small incremental snapshots.

The copy command now copies multiple snapshots together so that small pack files are avoided where possible.

[#5453](https://github.com/restic/restic/issues/5453) [#5472](https://github.com/restic/restic/pull/5472)

• Enhancement [#5523]: Add Open Container Initiative labels to release Docker image

The release Docker image now includes OCI-style image annotation labels, which helps external tooling identify the image.

[#5523](https://github.com/restic/restic/pull/5523)

• Enhancement [#5531]: Reduce Azure storage costs by optimizing uploads

Restic previously used Azure PutBlock and PutBlockList for every upload, which cost two storage transactions per file and roughly doubled transaction charges for repositories with many pack files.

Files up to 256 MiB now use PutBlob, requiring only a single transaction per file and cutting typical transaction costs by about half. Larger blobs still use block uploads as required by Azure.

[#5531](https://github.com/restic/restic/issues/5531) [#5544](https://github.com/restic/restic/pull/5544)

• Enhancement [#5562]: Rewrite only changed status lines each frame

The status bar rewrote every line on each frame whenever any content changed, which made selecting text impossible in some terminal emulators even when most lines were unchanged.

Now only lines that actually change are rewritten on each update.

[#5562](https://github.com/restic/restic/issues/5562) [#5648](https://github.com/restic/restic/pull/5648)

• Enhancement [#5588]: Show timezone context in snapshots output

The snapshots command now prints which timezone is used for displayed timestamps. Snapshots may have been created in different timezones but are shown in the local timezone, so a footer line (for example, timestamps shown in CET) clarifies the display context when comparing snapshots from several sources.

[#5588](https://github.com/restic/restic/pull/5588)

• Enhancement [#5610]: Reduce check, copy, diff and stats memory usage

The check, copy, diff and stats commands now use less memory when handling large snapshots.

[#5610](https://github.com/restic/restic/pull/5610)

• Enhancement [#5689]: Show more detailed progress for stats

The stats command used to show progress only while loading the index. During the scan it printed only scanning... with no further updates. It now reports how many snapshots, files, and blobs have been processed so far.

[#5689](https://github.com/restic/restic/issues/5689) [#5705](https://github.com/restic/restic/pull/5705)

• Enhancement [#5713]: Significantly speed up index loading

Loading the index for a large repository is now significantly faster. Also, the mount command now loads the index once at startup and then only loads new index files as they appear. It also loads snapshots before printing that the repository is being served.

[#5713](https://github.com/restic/restic/pull/5713) [#5720](https://github.com/restic/restic/pull/5720)

• Enhancement [#5718]: Stricter and earlier validation of the mount point

The mount command previously accepted invalid mount points, resulting in an error after loading the repository. The specified mount point must now refer to a directory that the current user can access and write to, and this check is performed before opening the repository.

[#5718](https://github.com/restic/restic/pull/5718)