Install

Requirements

OS	macOS, or Linux with systemd (POSIX). Windows: run it inside WSL (best-effort, systemd-on required for the agent)
Python	>= 3.9
fswatch	emcrisostomo/fswatch

brew install fswatch      # macOS
sudo pacman -S fswatch    # Arch / Omarchy
sudo apt install fswatch  # Debian / Ubuntu
sudo dnf install fswatch  # Fedora

safekeep doctor prints the right command if fswatch is missing.

safekeep itself has no runtime dependencies: pure Python standard library.

pipx (recommended)

pipx install safekeep

pip

pip install --user safekeep     # make sure ~/.local/bin is on your PATH

Optional: S3-compatible destination

The S3 client (botocore) ships in an extra — the core package stays pure standard library:

pipx install "safekeep[s3]"     # or: pip install "safekeep[s3]"

Without it a config with s3_* keys fails fast with the install hint. Full reference: S3 destination.

Agent (launchd / systemd)

The agent that runs the daemon at boot is installed from the installed package — the unit templates ship inside the wheel, no checkout needed:

safekeep daemon install          # preflight + render + write; does NOT start
safekeep daemon install --dry-run    # preview, nothing is written
safekeep daemon start            # after filling ~/.safekeep — loads and starts

The install step runs preflight checks first — fswatch present, safekeep shim on PATH, python >= 3.9, and WSL with systemd on — and fails fast (exit 1) if any is missing. It creates ~/.safekeep from the embedded example if missing (chmod 600), renders ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.safekeep.agent.plist on macOS or ~/.config/systemd/user/safekeep.service on Linux, and does not start the job — see Agent.

On Linux, to start at boot without a login session, add --enable-linger (runs loginctl enable-linger $USER — linger = user units active even without a login).

The old bash install.sh wrapper still works but is deprecated since 0.7.0 (removal still pending): it just delegates to safekeep daemon install. On Linux without systemd (WSL1, WSL2 with systemd off, containers) the preflight fails with exit 1 and prints the fix (enable systemd in /etc/wsl.conf) or the manual-start alternative (safekeep run) — see Windows: WSL.

Verify

safekeep --help
safekeep doctor

Run doctor after granting Full Disk Access on macOS (see Troubleshooting); on Linux the same command checks the inotify watch limit and the systemd unit.