Understanding default file exclusions in CrashPlan

Overview

The CrashPlan app is designed to protect your personal and business files, rather than operating systems or applications. To optimize backup performance, CrashPlan automatically excludes certain temporary files, operating system directories, and application caches.

This article details the default exclusions currently applied to new accounts. Our recommended global exclusions are regularly updated, and we suggest occasionally reviewing your current exclusions to ensure peak backup performance.

To learn how to manually customize your own exclusion settings, see Include and exclude files for backup from CrashPlan.

Types of files excluded

Because CrashPlan is designed to protect your personal and business data rather than operating systems or applications, it automatically ignores certain system, temporary, and easily replaceable files. Some of the excluded file types and folders are broken down below:

General exclusions

Across all operating systems, CrashPlan excludes items including:

• Temporary & Cache Files: Items such as browser caches, cookies, application temporary files (.tmp), and system working files.
• Virtual Machines & Disk Images: Large, dynamic files used for VMs and backups, such as .vmdk, .vdi, .vhdx, .iso, and .pkg.
• Development & Sync Folders: Local development environments and caches, including .git folders, node_modules, and .dropbox.cache.
• System Logs & Databases: Files like memory dumps (memory.dmp), database lock files (.db, -wal, -lock), and system logs.

Windows exclusions

On Windows devices, CrashPlan skips over core system components and recovery files, including:

• Operating System Folders: Directories such as Windows, Program Files, and ProgramData.
• System & Boot Files: Core infrastructure files like pagefile.sys, hiberfil.sys, boot.ini, and bootmgr.
• Hidden/System Directories: Folders like $RECYCLE.BIN, System Volume Information, and Windows Update Setup Files.
• Temporary Web Data: Locations such as the Temporary Internet Files folder.

macOS exclusions

On Macs, CrashPlan avoids backing up the OS itself, Apple-specific caches, and redundant backups, including:

• Operating System Folders: Directories such as /System, /Applications, /Library, /bin, and /sbin.
• Redundant Backups: Locations like Time Machine backups (backups.backupdb) and the .Trash folder.
• Media Caches: Easily regenerated media files, such as Photos and iPhoto thumbnails, iTunes Album Artwork caches, and iMovie render files.
• Apple System Files: Items like Spotlight indexes, .DS_Store files, and .fseventsd.

Linux exclusions

For Linux machines, CrashPlan excludes root-level system directories and mount points, including:

• System Directories: Essential OS folders like /usr, /opt, /etc, /sbin, and /var.
• Hardware & Process Data: Directories that represent hardware or running processes, such as /dev, /proc, /sys, and /run.
• Mounts & Media: Temporary mounts or media drives like /cdrom, /dvdrom, and lost+found.

Recommended global exclusions

The exclusions listed below are set by default in a new CrashPlan environment. We recommend these exclusions for best backup performance.