GUARD v0.5.5 is a bug-squashing release. Testing the app's daily usage and thoroughly reading through the codebase turned up several faults: a few instances where GUARD would stay silent or unresponsive when something went wrong, the possibility that your files or settings could get stranded, and an unlikely, but possible, app crash.
Fixed
- Restoring app settings could move your settings folder aside and put nothing back, then report success. GUARD renames an existing settings folder aside before copying the saved copy over it. If the drive holding the saved copy was disconnected during the reinstall that runs first, the copy quietly did nothing, the folder stayed renamed, and the summary counted it as restored. GUARD now re-checks the saved copy just before each folder is restored; a restore that cannot read it leaves your folder exactly where it is, and the summary names the folders it left alone.
- A
.or\destination subfolder was accepted, and a Mirror backup would then delete the rest of your backup. Both mean the destination itself, so a pair saved that way mirrored into the root and the next run purged every other folder's backup. Both are now refused when a folder is added or edited. Folders already saved that way keep working and are left alone. - Saving one page's settings could replace the other page's with defaults. If the settings file could not be read at that moment - held open by another program, or on a drive that had gone away - GUARD treated the failure as "no settings yet" and wrote defaults over the fields the page does not own. Starting GUARD while the file was unreadable could then overwrite it entirely. GUARD now tells the difference between "no settings yet" and "settings could not be read", refuses to save over what it could not read, and says so.
- A backup that gave up before it started said nothing at all. An unreachable destination, or a scheduled backup already holding the run lock, ended the run before the first folder, so no outcome was announced and the progress line kept reading "Measuring folders...". Worse, a run skipped because another backup held the lock left the previous run's green "succeeded" on screen as the only signal. Every run now ends with a spoken outcome, and one skipped for the lock says so.
- Stop Backup did nothing if pressed before the backup itself started. The button was live during the save and folder checks that precede the run, but a press in that window went nowhere. It now takes effect at the next step, and acknowledges the press immediately either way.
- Stopping a reinstall while settings were being restored hid where your folders went. The cancelled run reported only the app counts, leaving out the restore tally and, with it, the location of any folder that had been moved aside and could not be put back.
- An app list containing an empty entry closed GUARD without a message. Importing JSON with a null entry in it crashed the app on the spot; such entries are now skipped.
Full changelog: https://github.com/PlanetLinux98/guard/blob/main/CHANGELOG.md#055---2026-08-14