backtrail
Continuous file history for folders without git — track every save, view diffs, and restore any version without overwriting your files.
Not a lightweight git. There's no staging, no commits, no branches. You track a folder, and from then on every save, create, delete, and rename becomes a point in that file's history automatically — visible in a panel, diffable, restorable. Built for people who work with files, not repositories.
Contents
Quick start
- Right-click any folder in the Explorer → Track this folder. (Or use the + button in the Tracked Folders panel — Backtrail's own icon in the Activity Bar — to track a folder from anywhere on disk.)
- Keep working normally. Every save, create, delete, and rename in that folder becomes a new point in that file's history — nothing to commit, nothing to remember to do.
- Select a file to see its full history in the Backtrail History panel, or open the Changes panel for everything that changed across all tracked folders since you last looked.
- Click any version to diff it. Right-click a version → Restore this version to bring it back without touching your current file.
That's the whole workflow. No staging area, no commit messages, nothing to configure to get started.
Features
- Opt-in tracking, per folder. Right-click any folder in the Explorer → Track this folder — or use the + button in the Tracked Folders panel (Backtrail's own icon in the Activity Bar) to pick a folder from anywhere on disk; it gets added to your workspace tree automatically. A folder inside a git repository can't be tracked — if you're already using git there, this isn't for that folder. Every file already in the folder gets a baseline snapshot at that moment, so the first real edit afterward has something genuine to diff against.
- Continuous history panel. Select any file in a tracked folder and its version history shows up in the Backtrail History view in the Explorer sidebar, newest first.
- Changes panel, git-style. Backtrail's Activity Bar icon has its own Changes view — a separate, resizable panel below Tracked Folders, the same layout git's Source Control uses for "Changes"/"Staged Changes". It lists every pending change across all tracked folders, split into Modified and New, aggregated regardless of how many folders you track. Click a file to open its diff; it's marked seen and drops off the list automatically.
- New/changed badges and color in the Explorer tree. A file gets an N badge the first time it's captured, or an M badge when it changes again after you've already seen it — like an unread-email flag, not a permanent mark — plus the same green git uses for added/untracked files. Opening the file in the editor, or clicking it in the Changes panel, clears its badge; if it changes again afterward, the badge comes back. A folder containing a badged file shows a subtle indicator too.
- Mark All Changes As Seen. Right-click a tracked folder → clears every New/Modified entry for that folder in one action — useful right after tracking a folder full of existing files, so the Changes panel starts counting from your next real edit instead of flagging everything that was already there.
- Real diffs. Click a text or image version to open it in VS Code's native diff editor. Other binary formats (
.pptx, .xlsx, .mp4, .pdf, …) show a size and timestamp instead — there's no meaningful diff to show for those.
- Non-destructive restore. Right-click any version → Restore this version. It never overwrites your current file — it writes a new file under
restored/, mirroring the original folder structure, so you decide what to do with it.
- Survives renames — even from Finder. Renaming or moving a file outside VS Code (Finder, Explorer,
mv) is invisible to most extensions. Backtrail correlates a delete and a same-content create within a short window so the file's history keeps going instead of restarting.
- Tracked Folders panel. Backtrail's own Activity Bar icon lists every folder you're tracking. Right-click one → Stop Tracking; you'll be asked whether to also delete that folder's saved history, and — if it's part of your workspace — whether to remove it from the Explorer tree too.
Requirements
None beyond VS Code itself. Everything runs locally; nothing leaves your machine.
Extension settings
This extension contributes the following settings:
| Setting |
Description |
Default |
backtrail.ignoredFolders |
Folder names never tracked, at any depth |
node_modules, .git, dist, build, restored |
backtrail.ignoredFiles |
Exact file names never tracked, anywhere in a tracked folder |
.env, .env.local, id_rsa, id_ed25519, .npmrc, .netrc |
backtrail.ignoredExtensions |
File extensions never tracked, e.g. .log, .tmp |
none |
backtrail.maxFileSizeMB |
Files larger than this are never tracked |
50 |
backtrail.retentionDays |
Snapshots older than this many days are discarded automatically |
45 |
Known limitations
- A rename performed outside VS Code is only recognized if the new file appears within 5 seconds of the old one being deleted, with identical content. A rename combined with an edit in the same instant may not be recognized as a continuation.
- Consecutive saves of an already-tracked file collapse into one version once the file goes quiet (see
backtrail.captureDebounceSeconds). A rename or delete that lands mid-debounce is flushed as its own version first, so no edit is lost — but tools that save via a temp-file-then-rename pattern in very quick succession may still see that flush land as a slightly different intermediate version than you'd get from watching every keystroke.
- Snapshots are stored unencrypted in VS Code's global storage for the extension, readable only by your own user account (files and folders there are created with owner-only permissions). Don't track folders with secrets you wouldn't want readable on disk.
- Tracking state and history don't sync across machines.
Development
Requires Node 24+ — unit tests run .ts files directly via node --test, relying on native TypeScript type-stripping (no ts-node/tsx).
npm install
npm test # unit tests (node --test) + integration tests (real VS Code host)
npm run format # formats src/ and test/ with prettier
npm run lint # eslint
npm run package # builds dist/extension.js
Issues and PRs welcome.
License
MIT — see LICENSE.
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