BUDGIE BACKUP - TERMS OF SERVICE AND DISCLAIMER

Last updated: 29 September 2026

1. ACCEPTANCE OF TERMS
By clicking "I Understand and Accept", or by installing or using Budgie Backup (the "Software"), you agree to be bound by these Terms. If you do not agree, click "I Disagree" and do not use the Software.

2. WHAT THE SOFTWARE IS - AND WHAT IT IS NOT
Budgie Backup exists for one purpose: to make additional copies of your data in other locations, so that those copies are available to you if the original data is lost - for example after a drive failure, theft, fire, flood, accidental deletion, ransomware, or any other crash or disaster-recovery scenario. Making the copy is the easy half; having a copy that is current, complete, reachable, and proven to restore is the half that matters, and that half is yours.

The Software copies FILES AND FOLDERS that you select. It is not a disk-imaging, cloning, or bare-metal-recovery product. It does not create a bootable copy of your computer, and it does not back up: the Windows operating system itself; installed applications or their program files; the Windows registry; product keys, licences, or activation state; system state, drivers, or partition layout; or any user account other than the one the Software is running under. Settings that an application keeps in the registry rather than in a folder - mail account and server settings being the common example - are NOT captured, so after a restore such applications may need to be reinstalled and reconfigured before the restored data can be used.

Restoring is a manual operation performed by you. The Software produces copies you can browse in Windows Explorer; it does not guarantee that Windows, or any application, will accept those copies once they are put back. Test a restore before you need one.

3. FREE SOFTWARE - NO WARRANTY
The Software is provided free of charge, "AS IS" and "AS AVAILABLE", without warranty of any kind, express or implied, including but not limited to warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title, and non-infringement. The author does not warrant that the Software will be error-free, uninterrupted, secure, or that it will successfully copy, verify, or preserve any data.

4. LIMITATION OF LIABILITY
To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, the author shall not be liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or exemplary damages - including but not limited to data loss, data corruption, hardware failure, downtime, lost profits, or business interruption - arising from the use of, or inability to use, the Software, even if advised of the possibility of such damages. Where liability cannot be excluded by law, it is limited to the amount you paid for the Software (zero).

YOUR STATUTORY RIGHTS. Nothing in these Terms excludes, restricts or modifies any right, guarantee, warranty, condition or remedy that you have under the Australian Consumer Law (Schedule 2 to the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth)), or under any other law that applies to you, and that cannot lawfully be excluded, restricted or modified. Where such a right applies, the author's liability for breaching it is limited, to the extent the law allows, to supplying the Software to you again or paying the cost of having it supplied again. Sections 3 and 4 apply subject to this paragraph.

5. YOUR RESPONSIBILITIES
You are solely responsible for your data and for maintaining an adequate backup strategy. In particular, you agree to:
  (a) keep multiple independent backups, including at least one verified, physically separate offsite copy (e.g. the 3-2-1 rule: 3 copies, 2 media types, 1 offsite);
  (b) regularly TEST and VERIFY that your backups exist, are current, and can actually be restored - a backup that has never been restored is not a backup;
  (c) not rely on Budgie Backup as your only means of protecting important data. Theft, fire, flood, ransomware, hardware failure, and silent data corruption can occur at any time;
  (d) ensure you have sufficient storage space and permissions before running any backup;
  (e) use the Software only on systems and data you own or are authorised to access, and in compliance with all applicable laws;
  (f) review what you have selected before each run, and check the result afterwards - the Software does not verify that a backup is complete, correct, current, or restorable, and a figure on screen is not proof that a file was copied or has been deleted after the backup;
  (g) confirm that the destination is the one you intended and that it has sufficient free space, and understand that backing up to a destination which already holds data may overwrite, replace, or remove files there. Backup destinations must be a folder on a drive letter on this computer (an internal, USB or other locally attached drive); network paths, mapped network drives, device paths and links are refused; and
  (h) where a backup is scheduled or left to run unattended, ensure the computer stays powered and awake, the destination stays connected and available, and the outcome is checked afterwards - a scheduled run that fails, is interrupted, or never starts will not come and tell you.

6. ADMINISTRATOR RIGHTS AND SYSTEM CHANGES
Parts of the Software require administrator (elevated) rights to run. With those rights it may, as part of a backup: read files across the current user's profile, query drive hardware information (including S.M.A.R.T. health data), create Volume Shadow Copy (VSS) snapshots, and request Windows System Restore points. These operations are performed through standard Windows facilities; the author is not responsible for the behaviour of those Windows components. Files, folders and web links that you open from an elevated program are opened at your normal user level, not with administrator rights. The Software backs up the CURRENT user's folders and data only - other user accounts on the computer are not backed up.

7. SIZE ESTIMATES, FOLDER LOCATIONS AND THE "*" MARKER
Every size, count, total, progress figure and time-remaining figure shown by the Software is an ESTIMATE, provided for general guidance only. It is not a measurement of what will actually be copied, and it is not a representation as to how much storage a backup will consume or how long it will take. In particular:
  (a) FOLDERS SIT INSIDE OTHER FOLDERS. Some of the locations you can select are contained within other locations you can select. Where that happens the same files may be counted on more than one line, or - where the Software deliberately excludes a nested folder so that the individual figures add up - may not be counted on the line you are reading. Totals are therefore indicative only, and may be larger or smaller than the finished backup.
  (b) ONLINE-ONLY CLOUD FILES ARE NOT COUNTED. Files that a cloud client such as OneDrive or Dropbox keeps "online only" exist as placeholders and are not physically present on this computer. They are excluded from the estimates and are also excluded from the backup itself. To include them you must first make them available offline using the cloud provider's own tools, and then re-check the sizes.
  (c) "*" MEANS THE FOLDER COULD NOT BE FULLY READ. An asterisk shown against a size means the Software was unable to read that folder in full - typically because of permissions, files in use, path length, a device that went offline, or a security product denying access. The true size may be larger than the figure shown, and the content that could not be read may also be absent from the backup.
  (d) FOLDER LOCATIONS CANNOT BE PREDICTED WITH CERTAINTY. Windows permits the standard user folders - Desktop, Documents, Downloads, Music, Pictures, Videos, App Data and others - to be moved, redirected, renamed, merged into a cloud folder, placed on another drive, or controlled by policy on a managed or domain-joined computer, and applications may store data in locations of their own choosing. The Software identifies folders using the information Windows reports, together with commonly used defaults. It cannot guarantee that it has found every location in which your data actually resides, that a location it has found is the one you had in mind, or that a location will still be there on the next run.
  (e) FIGURES ARE A SNAPSHOT. Sizes are measured at a point in time. Files created, changed, moved, or deleted afterwards - including by software running in the background - are not reflected in figures already on screen.

You remain responsible for confirming, before and after a backup, that the data you care about has in fact been selected and copied. Do not treat a displayed size, count, or total as evidence that a backup is complete.

8. APP DATA, AND SELECTIONS THAT OVERLAP
"App Data" (the AppData folder and its Local, LocalLow and Roaming sub-folders) is a core Windows user folder. It is where a very large number of applications keep their working data - including, in many cases, the very data behind the Software's separate Browser Data, Email and Cloud Storage selections. You acknowledge and agree that:
  (a) TICKING AN APP DATA SELECTION CAN CAPTURE OTHER CATEGORIES. If an App Data selection is ticked, everything within the folders that selection covers is backed up - including browser profiles, mail-client data, cloud-client data, application caches and temporary files that happen to live there - EVEN IF the Browser Data, Email and Cloud Storage tick boxes are NOT ticked. The converse is also true: ticking those categories in addition may cause the same data to be copied more than once, increasing the size of the backup and the time, storage and cost of producing it.
  (b) APP DATA IS LARGE, VOLATILE, AND FULL OF FILES IN USE. It is written to constantly by running software, it holds caches and temporary data of no value in a restore, and it routinely contains files that are locked while Windows is running. Size figures for App Data are correspondingly unreliable, and it is normal and expected for parts of it to be unreadable, or to change, during a scan or a backup.
  (c) SPLITTING APP DATA IMPEDES A MANUAL RESTORE. Selecting some App Data sub-folders and not others produces a backup in which an application's data is divided across different parts of the backup, or is present only in part. Applications generally expect their App Data to be complete and internally consistent. A partial or split copy may not restore cleanly, may cause an application to misbehave or refuse to start, or may be of no use at all. If App Data matters to you, back it up in full.
  (d) THE SELECTION IS YOURS. The Software does not detect, prevent, correct, or warn you about every overlapping, duplicated, or partial selection. Reviewing what you have chosen, and understanding where your data actually lives, is your responsibility and not the author's.

9. FILES AND ATTRIBUTES THAT MAY NOT BE COPIED
Not everything on a Windows computer can be copied by a file-level backup. Without limiting Sections 3 and 4, the Software may skip, or may be unable to copy correctly: files that are open, locked, or in use by Windows or another application; files that a permission setting, group policy, or security product prevents it from reading; online-only cloud placeholders (see Section 7(b)); junctions, symbolic links and other reparse points, which are deliberately skipped rather than followed, so as to avoid loops and duplicated copies; files with unusually long or otherwise invalid paths; and files that are changed, moved, or deleted while a backup is running. Databases and mailboxes that are open at the time - mail stores and browser profiles in particular - may be copied in an inconsistent state, and should be closed before a backup.

The Software copies file DATA. Security descriptors and permissions (ACLs), ownership, auditing settings, alternate data streams, extended attributes, compression and encryption flags, and comparable metadata are not guaranteed to be preserved. Files protected by the Windows Encrypting File System (EFS) may be unreadable, or unusable, on another computer or under another user account. A restored file may therefore carry different ownership or permissions from the original.

10. TIME, SPEED, DATA USE AND COST
Any figure for duration, speed, throughput, time remaining, or amount to be transferred is a rough projection based on conditions at the instant it was calculated. It is not a commitment. Actual performance depends on matters wholly outside the author's control, including the read and write speed, condition and interface of your drives and enclosures; file sizes and counts; fragmentation, encryption and compression; other software running at the same time, real-time antivirus scanning in particular; network, share and NAS performance; your internet upload and download speeds; and any throttling, shaping, congestion, outage, maintenance window, or quota applied by your internet service provider or by any cloud provider. Nothing about the speed or duration of a backup, verification, or restore is guaranteed.

You are solely responsible for every cost arising from your use of the Software. This includes, without limitation: metered internet, mobile-broadband, roaming and excess-data charges; the cost of exceeding an ISP data allowance, or of being shaped for doing so; cloud storage, upload, download, egress, transaction and early-deletion charges; the cost of the storage media and hardware you buy; and electricity. Backups and restores of large data sets can move very large volumes of data and can run for many hours or days. Work out what a backup - and, more importantly, a full restore - will cost you in time, data and money BEFORE you begin one. Neither the author nor any third-party vendor is responsible for those costs, for a bill you did not expect, or for a transfer that took longer than you hoped.

11. SECURITY OF YOUR BACKUPS
A backup is a second complete copy of your data, and it is only as safe as the place you put it. The Software does not encrypt, password-protect, or otherwise obscure the copies it creates: unless you take steps of your own, any person who obtains the backup drive, folder, share, or bucket can read everything in it. You agree that:
  (a) you will store backups only in locations you control and have secured appropriately - for example an encrypted drive (such as one protected by BitLocker), a restricted folder or network share, or a physically secured offsite location - and that lost, stolen, borrowed, second-hand, discarded, recycled, or shared media must be treated as a disclosure of everything held on it;
  (b) if you place backups in cloud storage, including a Backblaze B2 bucket, the security configuration of that storage is yours: keeping the bucket private, issuing least-privilege bucket-scoped application keys, rotating them, and enabling whatever encryption the provider offers. The Software does not encrypt data before upload and does not request server-side encryption on your behalf. Do not assume that any provider encrypts your data by default, or that any encryption it does apply prevents anyone but you from reading it. Confirm the current position with the provider, and where confidentiality matters, encrypt the data yourself before it leaves your computer;
  (c) if your backups contain personal information about other people, you - and not the author - are the party responsible under any applicable privacy or data-protection law for how those copies are stored, secured, transferred (including across borders), retained, and destroyed; and
  (d) backups are a prime target for ransomware, malware and theft, and a backup that is permanently connected and writable can be encrypted, corrupted, or destroyed along with the original. Keep at least one copy offline, or otherwise out of reach of the computer being backed up. Note also that a backup faithfully copies whatever it is given, including files that are already corrupted, already encrypted by ransomware, or already infected.

12. THIRD-PARTY PRODUCTS AND SERVICES
The Software may detect, reference, or link to third-party products and services such as Backblaze and Acronis. These are independent products owned by their respective companies. The author is not affiliated with, sponsored by, endorsed by, approved by, or responsible for these products or services, their availability, pricing, or performance, and no third party named in the Software has reviewed or approved it. Detection of a running process does not guarantee that the product is correctly configured or actually protecting your data - verify your cloud and image backups yourself with the vendor's own tools. Links to third-party websites (including reviews) are provided for convenience only.

TRADEMARKS OF OTHERS. All product names, service names, company names, brands and logos mentioned in the Software or its documentation - including Backblaze and Backblaze B2, Acronis and Acronis True Image, CrashPlan, Microsoft, Windows, Microsoft Edge, OneDrive and Outlook, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird, Opera, Brave, Dropbox, iPhone (Apple Inc.), PhotoSync, Cyberduck, Cloudflare, Instatus, and Amazon (the AWS SDK for .NET) - are the trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. They are used only to identify those owners' products and services (for example, to say whose data or software the Software can back up, detect or work with, or which storage service Budgie Backup Sync uploads to), and their use does not suggest any affiliation with, sponsorship by, or endorsement by those owners. The Software uses the published interfaces of the services it connects to, including the Backblaze B2 / S3-compatible interface; it is not made, certified, endorsed or supported by Backblaze, and Backblaze cannot help you with problems in the Software.

REFERRAL LINKS. Some links in the Software and in the author's web pages are referral links, and the author receives a benefit from the third party if you sign up through them. Currently these are Backblaze referral links, including the "Create a Backblaze account" button in BudgieBackupSync and the Backblaze refer-a-friend link at https://www.backblaze.com/cloud-backup/personal/refer-friends (Backblaze Personal Backup is a separate consumer product, unrelated to the Backblaze B2 storage this Software uploads to - see Section 13). The benefit is a referral credit or free period from Backblaze (for example, a free month of Backblaze Personal Backup storage), which the author intends to accept, and you may receive one too. Using a referral link costs you nothing extra, the promotion is operated by Backblaze and not the author, and it does not change any pricing described in these Terms. The author's opinions of Backblaze in the Software are his own, and you should compare providers and read the current terms and prices before signing up.

OTHER LINKS. The link to antillescoffee.com on the Welcome screen is a personal thank-you to a friend. It is not a referral or affiliate link, and the author receives no payment, commission, product or other benefit from it.

13. CLOUD STORAGE (BACKBLAZE B2) - CHARGES ARE YOURS ALONE
BudgieBackupSync is an optional component of the Software that uploads a folder you nominate to a Backblaze B2 bucket that YOU have created, using Backblaze credentials that YOU supply. By using it you acknowledge and agree that:
  (a) SEPARATE AND UNRELATED ENTITIES. Backblaze, Inc. ("Backblaze") and Budgie Backup are entirely separate and unrelated entities. The author of the Software is not affiliated with, an agent of, a partner of, a reseller of, a joint venturer with, or endorsed by Backblaze, and receives no share of any amount you pay Backblaze. (If you create a Backblaze account through a referral link, the author may receive a referral benefit from Backblaze as described in Section 12; that benefit is not a share of what you pay and does not change your price.) Backblaze is referenced because it is a cloud storage provider whose published pricing the author considers reasonable and not exorbitant. No statement in the Software or its documentation constitutes a representation on behalf of Backblaze.
  (b) YOUR CONTRACT IS WITH BACKBLAZE. Your use of Backblaze B2 is governed exclusively by the agreement between you and Backblaze, including their terms of service, acceptable use policy, privacy policy, service levels and price list, each of which may be varied by Backblaze at any time without notice to the author. You are responsible for reading, accepting and complying with them, and for any breach of them.
  (c) ALL CHARGES ARE YOURS. You acknowledge that Backblaze B2 is a PAID, METERED service and that you alone are liable for every charge incurred on your Backblaze account. This includes, without limitation: storage charges levied on data retained over time; upload, download and egress charges; Class A, B and C transaction and API call charges; minimum retention charges for data deleted before the expiry of any minimum retention period; taxes, duties and currency conversion costs; and any charge arising from data uploaded in error, uploaded more than once, uploaded from an incorrectly chosen folder, or uploaded by an unattended, scheduled, resumed or repeated run of the Software.
  (d) YOU CHOOSE WHAT IS UPLOADED AND DELETED. You select the source folder and the destination bucket. The Software uploads the contents of that folder and, where you expressly confirm it, DELETES objects in that bucket which are no longer present in the source folder, so that the bucket matches the folder. Deletion from cloud storage may be immediate, permanent and unrecoverable, and may still attract a minimum retention charge. You are responsible for verifying both the source folder and the destination bucket before confirming any upload or deletion.
  (e) NO CAP AND NO MONITORING. Other than the general, indicative published rates described in paragraph (g) below, the Software does not calculate, predict, limit or cap your Backblaze charges, does not read your account balance, invoices, billing status or usage caps, and cannot prevent you exceeding any budget. It is your responsibility to monitor consumption and billing within your own Backblaze account and to set any spending caps or alerts that Backblaze makes available.
  (f) YOUR CREDENTIALS. You supply a Backblaze Application Key ID and Application Key. The Software holds these in memory for the duration of the session only and does not write them to disk. You are responsible for the safekeeping of those credentials and for using a bucket-scoped key with the least privilege necessary for the task. Any person who obtains your credentials may incur charges on, or destroy data in, your Backblaze account.
  (g) PRICING FIGURES ARE AN ESTIMATE, NOT A QUOTE. Where the Software or its documentation refers to Backblaze pricing, it does so only to convey the general order of cost involved. At the time of writing, Backblaze publishes B2 Cloud Storage pricing of approximately US$6.95 per TB (1 TB being 1000 GB) per month of data stored, with the first 10 GB of storage free of charge; uploads free of charge; and downloads (egress) free of charge up to three times your average monthly stored amount, and charged at approximately US$0.01 per GB beyond that. For most backup use, the storage charge is the dominant cost. THESE FIGURES ARE AN ESTIMATE AND NOT A QUOTE, AN OFFER, OR A PRICE THE AUTHOR IS ABLE TO HONOUR. They are stated in United States dollars, exclude taxes, duties, currency conversion, transaction and minimum-retention charges, may be out of date by the time you read them, and may not apply to your account, region, plan, or contract. Backblaze alone sets its prices and may change them, or change the way they are calculated, at any time and without notice to the author. Neither the author nor fearby.com controls, influences, resells, or receives any part of Backblaze's pricing, and neither is responsible for any difference between an indicative figure and the amount you are actually billed. Confirm current pricing with Backblaze before you upload anything, and monitor your own account thereafter.
  (h) NO LIABILITY FOR CHARGES OR CLOUD DATA. To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, the author shall not be liable for any Backblaze charge, overage, invoice, fee, penalty, account suspension, or for the loss, corruption, deletion or disclosure of any data stored with Backblaze, however arising and even where arising from a defect in the Software. Sections 3 (No Warranty) and 4 (Limitation of Liability) apply in full to this section.

14. NO PROFESSIONAL ADVICE; DRIVE HEALTH ESTIMATES
Any information displayed by the Software (including process detection, certificate details, drive health, or backup status) is provided for general information only and does not constitute professional, technical, or legal advice. Certificate and signature checks - including those the Software uses to refuse unsigned or altered updates and notices (see Section 17) - reduce risk but are not a guarantee that any software, file or message is safe or genuine.

The Software reads S.M.A.R.T. and related data from your drives and may display an estimated health rating such as "Healthy", "Warning", or "Unhealthy". These ratings are ESTIMATES based on data reported by the drive itself, which can be incomplete, inaccurate, or unavailable (some USB enclosures and RAID controllers report nothing). A "Healthy" rating is NOT a guarantee that a drive will not fail - drives can and do fail suddenly and without any prior warning signs. Never treat a health rating as a substitute for multiple independent backups.

Hardware fails. Every drive, enclosure, cable, controller, power supply and computer has a finite service life and a manufacturer's mean time between failures (MTBF) figure, which is a statistical average across a large population of devices - not a prediction about your device, and not something S.M.A.R.T. data can reveal. A drive may fail suddenly, silently, and with no prior warning in any data the Software or Windows is able to read, including while the Software is running.

Reading an entire user profile and writing an entire backup places sustained load on the source drive, on the destination drive, and on everything in between. Where a drive, enclosure, cable, power supply or computer is already marginal, that load may be the point at which it finally gives out. You accept that risk. Neither the author nor the Software is responsible for the failure, degradation, disconnection, corruption, or data loss of any drive or other hardware occurring before, during, or after use of the Software, whether or not the Software reported that hardware as "Healthy". If you suspect a drive is failing, stop using it and obtain professional data-recovery advice before running anything against it - including this Software.

15. DIAGNOSTIC LOGGING AND SCREENSHOTS
The Software writes debug log text files and may capture screenshots of its OWN windows to assist with troubleshooting. These are saved locally, on your own computer, one folder per program:

  %TEMP%\Budgie Backup\CreateBudgieBackupFile\   - logs, screenshots, bug-report zips
  %TEMP%\Budgie Backup\RunBudgieBackupFile\      - logs, screenshots, bug-report zips
  %TEMP%\Budgie Backup\BudgieBackupSysTray\      - logs, screenshots, bug-report zips
  %TEMP%\Budgie Backup\BudgieBackupUpdater\      - logs, screenshots, bug-report zips
  %TEMP%\Budgie Backup\BudgieBackupSync\         - logs, screenshots, bug-report zips

If %TEMP% itself cannot be written to, the same folders are created under %LOCALAPPDATA%\Budgie Backup\debug\ instead. Installations upgraded from an older build may also still hold a disused <exepath>\Debug\ folder containing logs written by earlier versions.

Screenshots capture the Software's own windows and may incidentally include the names of drives, folders, and files being backed up. Screenshots from previous sessions are deleted automatically each time the app starts; debug log files and saved bug-report zips are kept until you delete them. You may delete anything in these folders at any time.

Submitted bug reports are saved here:
  <exepath>\SubmittedBugReports\      - submitted bug-report zips
  
Screenshot capture can be disabled entirely (a "kill switch") by creating an empty folder named "no" at:

  <exepath>\debug\no

Before submitting any bug report, please review the screenshots and log files it will include and edit or delete anything you do not wish to share.

16. INDEMNITY
To the extent the law allows, you agree to indemnify and hold harmless the author from claims made by third parties, and the damages and reasonable expenses that result, to the extent they are caused by your breach of these Terms or by your use of the Software in breach of the law.

17. UPDATES AND CHANGES
The Software and these Terms may be updated, changed, or discontinued at any time without notice. Continued use after changes constitutes acceptance of the revised Terms. You are responsible for checking for and installing the latest version of the Software, published at https://budgiebackup.com. The Software includes an update checker (BudgieBackupUpdater) which contacts budgiebackup.com, only with your permission, to compare your installed version with the latest published version (see Section 19(a)). Before acting on anything it downloads, the update checker verifies that the version information carries a valid digital signature made with the author's code-signing certificate and that the installer is signed with that same certificate, and it refuses unsigned, altered, or older (downgrade) files. If an update cannot be checked or installed - for example because the signing certificate has expired or been replaced, or because your version has reached end of life - download the latest version from https://budgiebackup.com, and if that does not resolve it, email budgiebackup@fearby.com. Older versions may contain defects, inaccurate detection results, or security issues that have been fixed in later releases, and the author provides no support for outdated versions. Use of an outdated version is at your own risk.

NOTICES. BudgieBackupSysTray may display short notices published by the author (see Section 19(b)) - for example that a manual download is required, or that a version has reached end of life. Each notice is digitally signed and is verified on your computer before it is shown; a notice that fails verification is discarded. Notices are informational only. They do not change these Terms, and the author is under no obligation to publish a notice about any matter, nor responsible if a notice is not received, not shown (for example because the automatic news check is switched off), or not read.

18. ALPHA/BETA SOFTWARE AND BUILT-IN EXPIRY
The Software is provided as an indefinite alpha/beta (pre-release) program. Pre-release software is by its nature incomplete, experimental, and more likely to contain bugs, crashes, or incorrect results than finished software - do not use it in situations where failure could cause serious loss.

Each build contains a built-in expiry date. When a build expires, some or all functionality will stop working, and you must download the latest version from https://budgiebackup.com to continue using the Software. Expiry is a deliberate safety feature to prevent outdated pre-release builds from remaining in use, and is not a defect.

By participating in the alpha/beta, you are encouraged to actively contribute by reporting bugs, crashes, and inaccurate results, and by suggesting features, via the built-in bug report form (Ctrl+Alt+F12), via email to budgiebackup@fearby.com, or through https://budgiebackup.com. Feedback is voluntary; by submitting it you grant the author a perpetual, royalty-free right to use it to improve the Software without obligation or compensation. The author does not guarantee that any report will be actioned or any feature implemented, and participation does not entitle you to support, continued availability, or any future version of the Software.

ALPHA TESTER PROGRAMME. Registering as an alpha tester gives you early test builds and priority consideration of your feature requests. It does not give you a licence key, a paid or lifetime licence, or any right to payment, and it does not change the free licence in Section 24, which every user already has. "Priority" describes the order in which requests are considered - it is not a promise that any request will be built, or built by any date. The author may change or discontinue the Software or a feature at any time (Section 17), is not obliged to keep any particular version available or to provide support or updates, and may remove from the programme a tester who never takes part, as the registration form says. These Terms otherwise continue to apply to you.

19. PRIVACY
The Software runs on your own computer. It does not collect, sell, rent, or share your files or backup contents, and it does not automatically send personal data about you anywhere. The only personal data it ever sends is what you choose to type into the bug-report form (an email address, which is optional) or the alpha tester registration form (your name and email address), described below. It contains no telemetry, analytics, advertising, or tracking. Information the Software displays - such as detected processes, certificate details, drive health, file paths, and backup status - is read locally and stays on your machine. Your backups themselves are written only to the destinations you choose and are never transmitted to the author.

Settings that could be misused if copied - the Remote Monitor code and your saved favourite folders and files - are stored encrypted with Windows Data Protection (DPAPI), so that only your Windows account on this computer can read them.

The Software accesses the internet only in the situations below. Two of them - (b) and (c) - run automatically in the background from BudgieBackupSysTray and can each be switched off from its menu; the others happen only when you start them. In every case, a web request necessarily reveals your IP address and a Software-identifying user-agent string to the server concerned, which may appear in routine server logs.

  (a) UPDATE CHECK. BudgieBackupUpdater requests a small, digitally signed version file from budgiebackup.com. It checks only after you have given permission. If you tick "Check for updates automatically" it may also check in the background without asking each time; you can withdraw that permission at any time. With that same box ticked, BudgieBackupSysTray also looks roughly once a week (shortly after you sign in, when no check has been made for 7 days): it reads the same signed version file and the public change log from budgiebackup.com so that its reminder can say how many versions behind you are. It downloads and installs nothing. No personal data is sent.

  (b) NEWS CHECK. About five minutes after you sign in to Windows, and then once a day, BudgieBackupSysTray requests a small, digitally signed file of notices from budgiebackup.com (see Section 17). A record of which notices you have already seen is kept only on your computer. No personal data is sent.

  (c) SERVER STATUS CHECK. To show the service status in its menu, BudgieBackupSysTray reads a public status summary from fearby.instatus.com, operated by Instatus, at start-up and every five minutes. No personal data is sent.

  (d) BUG REPORTS. When you complete and submit the built-in "Report a Bug" form, the Software uploads a zip file containing: your form answers (including an email address, if you choose to give one - it is optional), the Software's debug log for the current session, statistics about the Software and your system (Windows version, processor, memory), Windows Event Log entries relating to the Software unless you untick that option, and - only if you choose to attach them - screenshots of the Software's own windows, which may show the names of folders and files being backed up. You can review and edit the report before it is sent. The report is encrypted on your computer before it is uploaded (AES-256-GCM, with a single-use key that is itself encrypted with the author's RSA-4096 public key), so it cannot be read in transit or by the storage provider. Nothing is uploaded unless you press Submit.

  (e) ALPHA TESTER SIGN-UP. If you complete the Alpha Test registration form in BudgieBackupSysTray, the name and email address you enter (with anything else you choose to type, and a short summary of your Windows version, processor and memory) are encrypted on your computer, uploaded to a separate private storage bucket, and used only to contact you about the alpha. Registrations - the online copy and any copy the author has downloaded or received by email - are deleted by 31 December 2026, or sooner if you ask (budgiebackup@fearby.com). A copy of what you sent stays on your own computer until you delete it.

  (f) BACKBLAZE B2 SYNC. BudgieBackupSync uploads the folder you choose directly to your own Backblaze B2 bucket. That data goes to Backblaze under your account and is never sent to the author (see Section 13).

  (g) LINKS AND THE INTRODUCTION VIDEO. Opening a web link, or playing the online introduction video, loads that page or video from its website in the ordinary way.

Bug reports are uploaded to and stored in a private storage bucket operated for the author by Cloudflare, Inc. (Cloudflare R2), acting as a hosting provider. The bucket is not publicly accessible. Bug-report data is used solely to identify and fix bugs in the Software, is normally downloaded and removed from online storage within hours, is deleted once the bug is resolved, and is in any case automatically and permanently deleted from online storage within 90 days of upload. It is never sold, shared with any other third party, or used for any other purpose. A copy of each submitted bug-report zip also remains on YOUR computer (see Section 15) so you can see exactly what was sent.

LOCAL NETWORK FEATURES. The Remote Monitor (in RunBudgieBackupFile and BudgieBackupSync) and Phone Upload (in BudgieBackupSysTray) run a small web server on your computer while you use them, so that a phone or other device on the same local network can view progress or send photos and videos. They listen only on your local network, never on an internet-routable address; accept connections only from your computer's own subnet; are protected by a code shown on your screen; and their Windows Firewall rules are limited to the local subnet. These local connections use plain HTTP and are not encrypted, so use these features only on a network you trust - your own home network, not public or shared Wi-Fi. Nothing is sent to the author.

If you voluntarily contact budgiebackup@fearby.com, anything you choose to include is provided by you and will be used only to respond to you and improve the Software. Please do not include sensitive personal data in bug reports or emails.

Third-party products and websites referenced by the Software (including Backblaze, Acronis, 7-Zip, Cloudflare, and Instatus) have their own privacy policies, which apply when you use them. The author is not responsible for the privacy practices of third parties.

20. OPEN-SOURCE AND THIRD-PARTY COMPONENTS
The Software includes third-party components (QRCoder, the AWS SDK for .NET, Microsoft WebView2 and Microsoft .NET runtime components), each subject to its own licence, listed - with the full licence texts - in third_party_licences.txt in the Documentation folder. These components remain the property of their respective owners.

21. TERMINATION
If you do not agree with these Terms at any time, your sole remedy is to stop using the Software and uninstall it.

22. GENERAL
If any provision of these Terms is found unenforceable, the remaining provisions remain in effect. These Terms constitute the entire agreement between you and the author regarding the Software. These Terms are governed by the laws of New South Wales, Australia, and each party submits to the non-exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of New South Wales, without limiting any consumer-protection right you have under the law of the place where you live that cannot be excluded by agreement. "The author" is Simon Fearby, an individual, who publishes Budgie Backup under the Fearby.com name. Questions about these Terms may be sent to budgiebackup@fearby.com. More information about the author and the Software is available at https://fearby.com and https://fearby.com/utilities/budgiebackup/.

23. SOFTWARE ENGINEERING STANDARDS AND FITNESS OF YOUR SYSTEM
The Software is developed using current, generally accepted software engineering practices, and reasonable care and diligence has been applied to its design, coding, and testing so that it operates as described in this documentation. Reasonable care is not a guarantee of fault-free operation, and nothing in this Section reduces, qualifies, or is intended to be read in place of Section 3 (Free Software - No Warranty) or Section 4 (Limitation of Liability), both of which continue to apply in full.

Use of the Software assumes that the computer it is installed and run on is in proper working order. That means, without limitation: that its hardware (including the processor, memory, storage devices, power supply, cooling, and motherboard), its operating system, its drivers, and any other software installed or running on it are each functioning correctly, are not defective, damaged, corrupted, incompatible, or being operated outside the manufacturer's specifications, and are reasonably up to date. Satisfying yourself of this before relying on the Software for anything important is your responsibility, not the author's.

Every physical and electronic component - and every piece of software, including Windows itself, third-party drivers, and any other application running at the same time - has a finite, statistical mean time between failures (MTBF), and can exhibit intermittent, random, or unreproducible faults, freezes, errors, or crashes for reasons entirely unconnected with the Software, at any time, including while the Software is running. Section 14 addresses this specifically for drive and storage hardware; this Section extends the same position to the computer and its wider software environment. To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, neither the author nor the Software is liable for any error, freeze, crash, data loss, or corruption arising from such a fault, however caused, whether or not it occurs while the Software is running, and whether or not the Software's own logs or bug-report tools are able to identify it.

24. OWNERSHIP, LICENCE AND TRADEMARKS
The Software is copyright (c) 2026 Simon Fearby. All rights are reserved except those granted here. "Budgie Backup" and "BudgieBackup" are names and marks of the author (unregistered at the date of these Terms), and are not licensed to you except as needed to run the Software. The Software is licensed to you, not sold. Subject to these Terms, the author grants you a free, non-exclusive, non-transferable licence to install and use the Software for your personal use and for the internal purposes of your own business, on computers you own or control. You may not sell, rent, lend, sub-license, or publish the Software, or distribute copies of it to others (send them to https://budgiebackup.com instead), and you may not modify it, or decompile or reverse engineer it, except to the extent the law allows despite this restriction or where a component's own licence (see Section 20) gives you that right. Feedback you give is dealt with in Section 18. Nothing in this Section transfers ownership of your data, which stays yours.

ARTWORK AND MEDIA. The budgie photographs used as the application icons and artwork are used with the permission of their photographer under a written licence to the author, and remain the photographer's property; they are not licensed to you separately. The introduction video was created using ElevenLabs, on a paid ElevenLabs plan that includes a commercial licence for the content generated. Other than as needed to run the Software or view the video on the author's website, you may not copy or reuse the artwork or the video.

By clicking "I Understand and Accept", you acknowledge that you have read, understood, and agree to these Terms, and that you accept full responsibility for the protection of your own data.

Released 27 October 2026 (v0.9.26.300)