🌟 SFClone – Effortless Salesforce Component Backups & Clones in VS Code

A simple, elegant VS Code extension to back up, clone, restore, and delete your Salesforce Apex, LWC, and Aura components with just one click. Ideal for versioning, prototyping, pre-deployment snapshots, and peace of mind.

🚀 Features

• 📁 Backup current file or entire component folders
• 🧠 Smart detection:
  • For LWC/Aura: backs up the full component folder
  • For Apex: backs up .cls, .trigger, and their corresponding -meta.xml files
• 🔄 Clone individual components:
  • Quickly create editable copies of Apex, LWC, or Aura files/folders
  • Includes *.cls-meta.xml and *.trigger-meta.xml for Apex components
• 🗄️ Restore from backup:
  • Select a previously created backup and copy files back into your workspace
• 🗑️ Delete all backups:
  • Warning prompt, then deletes everything under SFClone Backup/
• 🕒 Time-stamped and optionally labeled backups (format: YYYYMMDD_HHMMSS_label)
• 📂 Organized in a /SFClone Backup/ folder
• 🛡️ Auto-added to .gitignore to avoid polluting version control
• 💻 No Salesforce login or configuration required
• 🎁 Free to use — Optional donation link below

✨ Usage

🔁 Clone a Component

1. Open any Apex, LWC, or Aura file in your Salesforce DX project.
2. Open Command Palette (Ctrl+Shift+P or Cmd+Shift+P) → type:
3. The extension will create:

• For LWC/Aura: a sibling folder named <componentName>-clone/, with every file inside renamed to include -clone before its extension (including *.js-meta.xml → *-clone.js-meta.xml).
• For Apex (.cls or .trigger): a new file in the same folder named <OriginalName>-clone.cls (and <OriginalName>-clone.cls-meta.xml if applicable).

📦 Backup a Component

1. Open any file in an Apex, LWC, or Aura component.
2. Open Command Palette (Ctrl+Shift+P or Cmd+Shift+P) → type:
3. Choose:

• Backup current file/component • Apex: backs up that single .cls / .trigger and its -meta.xml to

  <SF Project Root>/SFClone Backup/YYYYMMDD_HHMMSS_<optionalLabel>/classes/
  

  • LWC/Aura: backs up the entire component folder under

  <SF Project Root>/SFClone Backup/YYYYMMDD_HHMMSS_<optionalLabel>/lwc|aura/<componentName>/
  

• Backup all components (classes, lwc, aura) • Copies /force-app/main/default/classes, /lwc, and /aura into

  <SF Project Root>/SFClone Backup/YYYYMMDD_HHMMSS_<optionalLabel>/{classes,lwc,aura}/
  

4. Optionally enter a short label for the backup folder (e.g., pre-deploy-fix).

🎉 That’s it! Your backup will be available under:

<SF Project Root>/SFClone Backup/YYYYMMDD_HHMMSS_<label>

🔄 Restore a Backup

✨ Usage

1. Open any Apex, LWC, or Aura file in your Salesforce DX project.

2. Open Command Palette (Ctrl+Shift+P or Cmd+Shift+P) → type:

    SFClone: Restore Backup
   

3. Select one of the timestamped backup folders (e.g., 20250604_141512_pre-deploy).

   Confirm the warning prompt (Restoring will overwrite current files. Continue?). On Yes, all files from that backup copy back into your workspace, preserving classes/, triggers/, lwc/, and aura/ structure.

🎉 That’s it! Your files are restored from the backup:

🗑️ Delete All Backups

✨ Usage

1. Open Command Palette (Ctrl+Shift+P or Cmd+Shift+P) → type:

    SFClone: Delete All Backups
   

2. Confirm the warning prompt (“This will permanently delete all backups. Are you sure?”). On Yes, everything under SFClone Backup/ is deleted.

📦 Example Structure

SFClone Backup/
├── 2025-05-31T10-32-00Z_pre-deploy-fix/
│   ├── classes/
│   │   └── MyClass.cls
│   │   └── MyClass.cls-meta.xml
│   ├── triggers/
│   │   └── MyTrigger.trigger
│   │   └── MyTrigger.trigger-meta.xml
│   ├── lwc/
│   │   └── myComponent/
│   └── aura/
│       └── myAuraComp/

📁 Auto .gitignore

On first run, the extension checks and auto-appends /SFClone Backup/ to your project's .gitignore file, ensuring your backups aren’t committed to Git.

💡 Why SFClone?

• 🚫 No external tools or CLI setup required
• 🔄 Great for ad-hoc backups before large changes
• 🪶 Lightweight and intuitive
• 🔌 Seamlessly integrates into your dev workflow

💖 Support & Donations

If this extension helped you, consider supporting its development.

☕ Buy Me a Coffee

🛠️ Installation

✅ From VS Code Marketplace (Recommended) Install directly from the VS Code Marketplace: 🔗 SFClone Extension on VS Code Marketplace

Or run this in the command line:

ext install ManoharSiriki.sfclone

bash Copy Edit ext install ManoharSiriki.sfclone

git clone https://github.com/your-username/sfclone.git
cd sfclone
npm install
npm run compile
code .

🧠 Author

Manohar Siriki Salesforce Technical Architect | VS Code Enthusiast Connect on LinkedIn