What can you recover?

[agood]

With "Backup" (aka Duplicity) what can you recover? Can you recover after a reinstall?

[Aravisian]

Yes, if using DejaDup (Duplicity) or if using Timeshift, backed up data can be restored even after a full wipe and install.
It is important that when running data backups, your preferences are set to include the necessary directories and folders.

[link234]

Like @Aravisian said, you can recover most files, but you can't recover apps after a new install.

[Aravisian]

@link234

but you can't recover apps after a new install.

Good point. I Had not thought ahead that far.

That being said, a member is not out at sea without a paddle, either:

[HOW TO] Easily reinstall programs when Reinstalling Zorin

Sometimes, bad things happen even to good people. Maybe it was a power outage or some spilled coffee... But whatever it was, you now must wipe and reinstall Zorin OS. What makes this particularly daunting is all your software you have installed must now be reinstalled. (EDIT: I am removing the script option as some report they work and some report they do not work. Y-PPA-Manager is a lot easier and works every time.) You can use Y PPA Manager GUI tool to back up your current repositories. Ru…

[swarfendor437]

You also can see what apps are installed by using Ctrl+ H to show the hidden folders in your /home folder - it is a good idea to back these up separately to an external drive or thumb drive as they contain settings of your installed applications like Firefox and others. So when you reinstall Zorin you can replace the generated dot files (hidden files e.g., .mozilla) so that your settings for that application are restored without having to make adjustments once more. My preferred option is Timeshift but if saving to external device instead of /home, make sure the partition you save to is formatted to ext4 or Timeshift will not be able to recover previous snapshots.

[Bourne]

It also exist some software like a Systemback or Pinguy Bilder.