Columbo is an observer of a syncronization/backup (futher just "sync") history. Such a history is produced by sync applications like rsync, rclone, GoodSync, etc.
Sync applications collect the history of changes (deleted, overwritten or, sometimes, moved files) in some folder (further a "history folder") in one of 2 ways: unified or by date.
Unified (tree) way means that each sync keeps changes directly in the history folder (unified history). Each changed file is marked with a timestamp suffix in its name.
history
├── Folder 1
│ └── Folder 3
│ ├── File 1_2024-01-01_10-00-00
│ └── File 1_2024-01-02_06-00-00
└── Folder 2
└── File 2_2024-01-02_06-00-00
By date (tree) way means that each sync keeps changes in a separate folder inside the history folder (separated by date history). Each separate folder is marked with a timestamp in its name.
history
├── 2024-01-01_10-00-00
│ └── Folder 1
│ └── Folder 3
│ └── File 1
└── 2024-01-02_06-00-00
├── Folder 1
│ └── Folder 3
│ └── File 1
└── Folder 2
└── File 2
Both ways are reasonable. For example, the unified way helps to understand what and when has been changed in a certain place. The by date way helps to understand what has been changed at a certain time. So, sometimes it is needed to switch from one view to another. However, the history can be stored in the only one way.
Columbo aims to provide a cross-platform convenient graphical interface to investigate the syncronization history regardless of which a way has been used for the storage and which a way you currently prefer for an investigation.
- Python 3.9+;
- PyQt 5.
In the release section, you can find binaries which are built with PyInstaller. There are the following binaries:
- Windows x86_64 (built on Windows 10 22H2);
- Linux x86_64 (built on CentOS 7 & Debian 10 Buster);
- Linux ARM64 (built on Debian 11 Bullseye & Debian 10 Buster);
- Flatpak for x86_64 & ARM64.
If you need another version, you can run Columbo from source or a build binary on your own. See instructions in docs/build.md.