I’m always looking for new and interesting utilities. The Internet is a wealth of these utilities and many of them are free. In this series of blogs I’ll go over some of the best and most interesting I have found – I welcome you to go try one of them and let me know what you think!

Today I look at a utility named Idlebackup – the version I looked at is 1.17 and the program is for Windows. It’s website is here.

Update: It appears as though this utility has been taken offline (by the original site owners. A simple Google search may find you the application  from alternative sources)

Backup utilities are a dime-a-dozen on Windows, so looking at this one – the free-ness is what caught my eye. Upon installation you’re greeted with a message “This freeware backup program is only suited/tested for Windows 2000, XP, and Vista.”, but not to worry – this program will work great in Windows 7 too. The power of Idle backup is that you’ll get to use the idle time on your computer more efficiently by backing up your data if your not around. The application can be set to auto-startup in Windows and backup based a couple types of inactivity.

If you’re looking for a place to start if you’ve never created automated backups – this may be the utility to try. With features like being able to mirror a directory and being able to compress (ZIP) your data – you’ll find this utility quite capable.

Capable, yes, but still flawed. The program has some kinks. You’ll find that some windows do not close – likely because the programming required for that feature is not finished. You’ll also find that some of the restore functions are not completely intuitive. One of the biggest missing pieces is the lack of Volume Shadow Copy support (for backing up open files).

If you use and like this utility – please get involved providing the author with bug reports and information about usability. The author also accepts donations. Support what you like!