Deletion in Electronic Backups

• US 20080307333A1
• Filed: 06/08/2007
• Published: 12/11/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 06/08/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Original Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Inventors: Hart, David, Cisler, Pavel, McInerney, Peter, Ulrich, Robert, Weiss, Eric
• Granted Patent: US 8,745,523 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/764
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1448 Management of the data involved in backup or backup restore
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1451 by selection of backup contents
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/84 Using snapshots, i.e. a logical point-in-time copy of the data

Abstract

Systems and methods are provided for storing and restoring digital data. In some implementations, a method is provided. The method includes displaying a current view, initiating a history view, the history view including two or more visual representations of corresponding earlier versions of the current view, identifying a selection of an item in a visual representation, receiving an input to delete the selected item, and deleting each instance of the selected item in the history view. Other embodiments of this aspect include corresponding systems, apparatus, computer program products, and computer readable media.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

displaying a current view;

initiating a history view, the history view including two or more visual representations of corresponding earlier versions of the current view;

identifying a selection of an item in a visual representation;

receiving an input to delete the selected item; and

deleting each instance of the selected item in the history view.

2. The method of claim 1, the deleting each instance comprises:

identifying each version of the item within the history view; and

deleting the item data associated with each instance.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

prompting the user to confirm delete when receiving an input to delete a selected item in the history view.

4. A method comprising:

displaying a visual representation of a current view;

identifying a selection of an item in the current view;

receiving an input to delete the selected item; and

deleting the item and each instance of the item within a backup archive associated with the current view.

5. The method of claim 4, where receiving the input to delete the selected item includes receiving an input to delete all versions of the selected item.

6. The method of claim 4, where displaying the visual representation of the current view includes displaying a visual representation of previously deleted items.

7. A method comprising:

initiating a backup system;

selecting one or more preferences for backup operations, the one or more preferences including identifying items to be excluded from the backup operations; and

performing one or more backup operations according to the identified preferences, the backup operations generating a backup having stored data corresponding to a file system structure.

8. The method of claim 7, where identifying items to be excluded from the backup operations includes identifying a particular path for exclusion, where items included in the path are excluded in the backup operations.

9. The method of claim 8, where the identified path designates a temporary items folder.

10. The method of claim 8, where the identified path designates a cache folder.

11. The method of claim 7, where identifying items to be excluded from the backup operations includes tagging a particular item so that the item is excluded from the backup operations.

12. The method of claim 7, where the identified items to be excluded are associated with a particular application.

13. The method of claim 12, where the identified items are e-mail spam messages.

14. The method of claim 12, where the identified items are instant messaging logs.

15. The method of claim 7, where the identified items to be excluded are items designated as temporary.

16. The method of claim 7, where the identified items are in a cache.