When I decided to start using LuckyBackup a few months ago, although I saw that it was just a frontend for Rsync, I thought I could use it to make my backups match their sources. I eventually figured out that I shouldn't select "back up source within destination," because that makes a copy of the source folder inside the destination--I'm not really sure what would be the point.

So I would have to use "synchronize source and destination" if anything, because those two are the only options. But that's not doing what I expected either. It took me a long time to catch this with certainty, but files I deleted are reappearing on my desktop--I thought I had simply forgotten to delete them. (Finally I sat and watched my desktop during a backup of my user account, and caught deleted files reappearing.) I thought "synchronize source and destination" meant "make destination match source," and it simply did not occur to me that it would go the other way, dumping files from the backup back into my home folder. That seems to be simultaneously restoring and backing up, and I have no idea why I would want to do that. I looked through the tabs in Advanced for an option to not return files from backup to source, but didn't find one. I guess I don't yet understand LuckyBackup. By copying back files from the destination, it's only making a mess for me to clean up.

I would expect synchronize to remove files from the destination if you removed them from the source, and not to put them back in the source directory. But, if you only want to make a backup of your source directory and save it in the destination directory then what is wrong with the "backup source within destination" option? Is it the fact that it makes an extra directory inside the destination instead of just transferring the contents of the source directory?

edit: Just had a quick look at the luckybackup options since I haven't had to change anything for ages and there is an option to "Do NOT create extra directory" which looks like it would copy the contents to the destination

Got it. Thank you. I found that I had this option selected for a different backup task, so I must have known about it but forgotten about it for this other backup.

Yes. The issue with "back up inside source" is wasting space and making it harder to remember which set of files on the destination is newer. Too messy.