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KopiaLens
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Notifications

KopiaLens can tell you when something needs attention: a backup failed, maintenance failed, or another app started running a repository's backups. Messages come from three places, and you set up all of them in Settings → Notifications.

In the app and the tray

The top setting picks what KopiaLens shows on screen:

  • All: everything, including finished indexing and finished jobs.
  • Warnings and errors: the default.
  • Off: nothing pops up.

In the desktop app these appear as tray notifications. In a browser they appear inside the page while it's open.

From KopiaLens: a webhook

KopiaLens can send its own messages to a web address. It covers what kopia doesn't report itself: failed KopiaLens jobs, failed backups and maintenance that KopiaLens recorded, KopiaLens's backup server stopping, and another app taking over a repository's backups.

  1. Enter the address, for example an ntfy topic like https://ntfy.sh/my-backups.
  2. Pick the format. Plain text suits ntfy (the title goes in ntfy's Title header). JSON suits services that read structured data.
  3. Add headers if the service needs them, one per line, for example Authorization: Bearer tk_… for a protected ntfy topic.
  4. Pick the level: errors only, warnings and errors, or everything.
  5. Save, then send a test.

From kopia: notification profiles

kopia itself can report on backups and maintenance. Its settings are stored inside the repository, so KopiaUI, the kopia command line and KopiaLens all see the same profiles. Choose the repository, then Add profile…:

  • Email: an SMTP server, sign-in, and the sender and recipient addresses.
  • Pushover: your app token and user key.
  • Webhook: an address, POST or PUT, extra headers, and a format. For ntfy, use your topic address with POST and plain text.

Each profile has a minimum level, from errors only up to everything. Save and send a test saves the profile and sends a test message straight away. Test sends another one later. When you edit a profile, leave a password field empty to keep the saved one.

kopia only sends these while something runs that repository's backups or maintenance: KopiaUI, a kopia server, or KopiaLens when it runs the backups (see Backups).

Note: kopia only accepts notification passwords on its command line, so while KopiaLens saves a profile, the password is briefly visible to other programs on this computer. KopiaLens never writes it to its logs.