Timeshift on Mint

Linux Mint 22 / published / guide #56 / ≈ 4 min read

Timeshift is Linux Mint's built-in system snapshot tool — a "save game" for your operating system. If an update or a tweak ever breaks your install, Timeshift lets you roll back to a known-good state, including from a GRUB boot menu when the system won't even start. This guide is the patient walkthrough.

Important framing: Timeshift backs up the system, not your personal files. By default it excludes /home. Don't use it as your photo backup. Use it as the safety net that means "I can confidently click Install on this update."

Open it

Menu → Timeshift. The first run opens a setup wizard. (You can re-run the wizard any time from Settings.)

The wizard — what to pick

Snapshot type

  • RSYNC — works on any filesystem. Each snapshot uses hard links for unchanged files, so storage is incremental in practice. This is the right choice for most users.
  • BTRFS — uses Btrfs subvolume snapshots. Instant, near-zero space — but only works if your / is on a Btrfs subvolume with the layout Timeshift expects. Mint's installer doesn't set this up by default; you'd have configured it manually.

Snapshot location

Pick the disk to store snapshots on. Two reasonable options:

  • Same disk as the system — convenient, fits the default install, protects against software problems but not disk failure.
  • A separate disk / external USB — more robust; protects against disk failure too.

Whichever you pick, it needs to have enough room. A typical Mint root filesystem is 15-30 GB; budget at least 2× that for snapshots.

Schedule

Defaults are sensible. A common starting point:

  • Monthly: 1 (long-term anchor)
  • Weekly: 2
  • Daily: 5
  • Boot: 5
  • Hourly: 0 (skip unless you're doing something risky)

User home directories

Leave this unchecked. Timeshift will warn you if you check it. Reasons: Timeshift isn't designed as a personal backup tool; a system rollback that also reverts your last hour of writing will surprise you painfully. Back up /home separately (see the rsync without losing data guide).

Take an immediate baseline snapshot

Click Create. Wait a minute or two. You now have a known-good state of a fresh, working system. Label it something like "fresh install" — there's a Comments field after.

How to use a snapshot day-to-day

Before any risky change

Right-click any snapshot → Mark as keep to stop the scheduler from deleting it. Or just take a fresh manual snapshot, label it "before NVIDIA driver install" or whatever.

Restore from inside a working system

Pick a snapshot, click Restore. Walk through the wizard. Timeshift previews what will change. Reboot when prompted.

Restore when the system won't boot

This is the one most people don't expect: Timeshift can restore from a Mint live USB.

  1. Boot from the Mint installer USB.
  2. Pick "Try Linux Mint" (don't install).
  3. Open Timeshift in the live session.
  4. It auto-detects your snapshots on disk.
  5. Pick one, click Restore, point at the right disk, walk through.
  6. Remove the USB and reboot.

This routine has saved a lot of laptops.

From the command line

sudo timeshift --list                                # list snapshots
sudo timeshift --create --comments "pre-experiment"  # make one
sudo timeshift --restore --snapshot '2026-05-15_14-00-00' --yes   # restore (asks)
sudo timeshift --delete --snapshot '2026-05-10_09-00-00'           # delete one

The CLI is fully featured — useful for cron jobs or automation.

What gets included / excluded

Default excludes (RSYNC mode):

  • /home/* — your personal files.
  • /root/* — root's home.
  • /dev, /proc, /sys, /run, /mnt, /media, /tmp, /lost+found — system / runtime stuff, not relevant.
  • The snapshot directory itself.

Edit excludes under Settings → Filters. You can add more, or whitelist specific files inside an excluded directory.

Disk space, in practice

A first snapshot of a typical Mint install is around 8-12 GB. Each subsequent snapshot adds only what changed (often 50-500 MB). Five daily snapshots typically fit in well under 20 GB.

To check what Timeshift is using:

sudo du -sh /timeshift                # default location for RSYNC snapshots

The "I deleted a system file, can Timeshift help?"

Yes — you don't have to restore the whole system. Open the snapshot directory in a file manager (as root):

sudo nautilus /timeshift/snapshots/<snapshot-name>/localhost/

Browse to the file, copy it back where it should go. No full system restore needed.

The one thing not to do

Don't restore a snapshot from the wrong release. If you upgraded from Mint 21 → 22 and try to restore a Mint 21 snapshot, you'll end up with a half-old, half-new system. Old snapshots are fine to keep as reference; restoring them across major upgrades is asking for trouble.

If you're about to do a major-version upgrade, take a fresh "pre-upgrade" snapshot and label it. Roll back from that if anything goes wrong, not from one before the upgrade chain started.

Summary

Set it up once, leave it running, take a manual snapshot before anything weird. The first time a botched update or a misguided experiment turns into a single button-click rollback, you'll understand why this is the very first thing Mint asks you to do.

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