Keep a safe backup of your github repos!

repobak.sh

#!/bin/bash

# script name: repobak.sh
#
# Keep a separate backup of all your repos, and keep them synced periodically.
# DO NOT make changes to any of these backed up repos locally; you want them pristine.
# Do your development in a different folder with your repo, such as (~/work/<my_repo>).
#
# Consider adding this to your crontab:
# 0 3 * * * /path/to/your/repobak.sh  # run repobak at 3am daily.

# --- Configuration ---
# Your GitHub username.
GITHUB_USER="<your github username>"

# The local directory where you want to store the backups.
# Use an absolute path to ensure the script works correctly with cron.
BACKUP_DIR="/path/to/your/github_backups"

# A list of your repository names (the part after your username).

# Your repo name is the last part of https://github.com/<yourusername>/<the_repo_name>

# Add all your repository names inside the parentheses, separated by spaces.
REPOS=(
  "my_repo_1"
  "my_second_repo"
  ...
)
# --- End of Configuration ---

# Ensure the parent backup directory exists.
mkdir -p "$BACKUP_DIR"

echo "Starting GitHub backup process..."
echo "---------------------------------"

# Loop through each repository name in the list.
for repo_name in "${REPOS[@]}"; do
  local_repo_path="$BACKUP_DIR/$repo_name"
  remote_repo_url="https://github.com/$GITHUB_USER/$repo_name.git"

  # Check if the local repository directory already exists.
  if [ -d "$local_repo_path" ]; then
    # The directory exists, so we sync it.
    echo "Syncing '$repo_name'... -----------------------------"
    cd "$local_repo_path" || continue # Go into the repo dir, or skip if cd fails
    git pull --prune
  else
    # The directory does not exist, so we clone it.
    echo "Cloning '$repo_name' for the first time..."
    git clone "$remote_repo_url" "$local_repo_path"
  fi
done

echo "---------------------------------"
echo "GitHub backup process finished."