Backup Library

Skill: Backup Library

Backups default to ~/Documents/buttercut-video-editor-backups. Each library gets its own subdirectory there, and each run drops a timestamped archive of just that one library — so adding a new clip to one library only writes that library's archive, not a full duplicate of everything.

~/Documents/buttercut-video-editor-backups/
  wedding/
    wedding_20260520_140000.aar
  programmer-story-vlog/
    programmer-story-vlog_20260520_140000.aar

Step 1 — Resolve the destination

Read backups_dir from libraries/settings.yaml. If the key is missing, ask the user with AskUserQuestion whether to use the default (~/Documents/buttercut-video-editor-backups, recommended) or a custom folder, and save the answer to libraries/settings.yaml under backups_dir. If libraries/settings.yaml doesn't exist yet, create it from templates/settings_template.yaml first.

When invoked from another skill that must stay non-interactive (e.g. process-library auto-backup) and backups_dir isn't set, skip the prompt and use the default — the user can change it later.

Step 2 — Run the backup

Default to backing up just the library you've been working on — that's almost always what "run a backup" means. Only back up everything when the user explicitly asks for "all libraries" or you're doing a one-time cleanup pass.

# Back up the one library you just touched (the usual case)
ruby lib/buttercut/backup_libraries.rb --library <library-name>

# Back up every library (only when the user explicitly asks)
ruby lib/buttercut/backup_libraries.rb

The script reads backups_dir from libraries/settings.yaml (falling back to the default). Pass --backups-dir <path> to override for one run.

Apple Archive (.aar) is used when the macOS aa CLI is available — hardware-accelerated on Apple Silicon, Finder handles double-click extract. Falls back to .zip otherwise.

After a successful backup_all run, the script removes the legacy in-project backups/ directory (the old single-archive layout) if it still exists and the resolved backups_dir is somewhere else. Per-library runs leave it alone.

Restore a library

Extract the per-library archive back into libraries/:

# Apple Archive — restores into libraries/<library-name>/
aa extract -i ~/Documents/buttercut-video-editor-backups/<library>/<library>_<timestamp>.aar -d libraries/<library>

# Zip — already contains the <library>/ folder
unzip ~/Documents/buttercut-video-editor-backups/<library>/<library>_<timestamp>.zip -d libraries/