hou-austin / rewind-helper

Rewind Helper

Rewind Helper is a launchd script designed to manage file storage on your primary drive by moving older files to a secondary drive for the program Rewind. This ensures optimal performance when accessing recent files, saves storage space on the primary drive, and conserves power by minimizing usage of the external storage. In particular, I noticed better performance for the Ask Rewind feature versus storing all data on an external drive. My storage solution was a SanDisk Extreme Pro MicroSD in a BaseQi 420A flush adapter in a MacBook Pro M2 Max.

With my data, there was a 78% reduction in space taken on the internal drive.

Disclaimer

• There is no guarantee that this will continue to work when Rewind is updated (tested on v1.2219).
• There is also no guarantee that this will not corrupt your Rewind data: Scheduled backups are highly advised.
• Do NOT disconnect your external drive when Rewind is in use. I do not know what will happen if you do so.
• I have not tested this with a NAS endpoint.
• I have not tested this on another system, only my own. You may need to make some modifications to get it working.

Files

The project consists of three main files:

1. rewind_helper.c: A C program that serves as an interface to the shell script rewind_helper.sh.
2. rewind_helper.sh: The core script that implements the functionality of moving older files from the primary location to the secondary location and deleting unlinked folders from the secondary location.
3. com.austinhou.rewindhelper.plist: The launchd configuration file which runs rewind_helper once every day, and redirects stdout and stderr to script.log and error.log, respectively.

Requirements

• C compiler (for example, gcc)
• zsh shell

Usage

1. You will need to modify the LOCATION_B path in rewind_helper.sh to a desired path

2. Run the install.sh script:

   ./install.sh

The script is now installed and will automatically run once every day, moving files older than 14 days from the primary location ($HOME/Library/Application Support/com.memoryvault.MemoryVault/chunks and $HOME/Library/Application Support/com.memoryvault.MemoryVault/snippets) to the secondary location (you need to specify this manually).

Logs

The script's output and errors are logged to the following files:

• Standard output: /var/log/rewind_helper/script.log
• Standard error: /var/log/rewind_helper/error.log

You can view these files to monitor the script's operation and troubleshoot any issues.

Customization

You may modify the paths and parameters in the rewind_helper.sh file to suit your needs. For instance, you can adjust the age threshold for moving files, or change the locations where files are moved from and to.

Uninstallation

To uninstall the script, simply run the uninstall.sh script:

./uninstall.sh

The script and related files will be removed, and the launchd job will be unloaded.

Permissions

You may need to run the following:

chmod +x ./install.sh
chmod +x ./uninstall.sh

Improvements

• It might be worth looking into the performance behavior of the SQL db on the external disk. It has the second/third largest impact - below chunks and snippets. If the performance is satisfactory on a MicroSD card, it may be worthwhile to move this file too.