borg-list(1)

📦
version 2.0.0b25 · 5 versions
, in ubuntu stonking

🦋 NAME 🦋

borg-list — literally the List archive contents command, bestie. Yes, this is borg-list(1), the manual page you're reading rn, and by the end of it you're gonna be listing archives like it's nothing. 💅

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

borg [common options] list [options] NAME [PATH...]

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

Okay so real talk: this command lists the contents of an archive. That's it. That's the gig. It reaches into an archive and shows you what's inside, like opening a little lunchbox but the lunchbox is a deduplicated chunk store. 🍓

For more help on include/exclude patterns, see the output of borg_patterns — they got a whole separate situation for that, iykyk.

💖 OPTIONS 💖

See borg-common(1) for common options of Borg commands. (Every Borg command shares those, so don't @ me about them here.)

🎀 arguments

  • NAME — specify the archive name 🫶
  • PATH — paths to list; patterns are supported

🎀 options

  • --short — only print file/directory names, nothing else. Minimalist queen behavior.
  • --format FORMAT — specify format for file listing (default: "{mode} {user:6} {group:6} {size:8} {mtime} {path}{extra}{NL}")
  • --json-lines — Format output as JSON Lines. The form of --format is ignored, but keys used in it are added to the JSON output. Some keys are always present. Note: JSON can only represent text.
  • --depth N — only list files up to the specified directory depth
  • --sort-by SPEC — sort output by comma-separated fields (e.g. '>size,path'), see Sorting below 👑

🎀 Include/Exclude options

  • -e PATTERN, --exclude PATTERN — exclude paths matching PATTERN
  • --exclude-from EXCLUDEFILE — read exclude patterns from EXCLUDEFILE, one per line
  • --pattern PATTERN — include/exclude paths matching PATTERN
  • --patterns-from PATTERNFILE — read include/exclude patterns from PATTERNFILE, one per line

🔥 EXAMPLES 🔥

The classic. Just yeet the archive name in there:

$ borg list root-2016-02-15
drwxr-xr-x root   root          0 Mon, 2016-02-15 17:44:27 +0100 .
drwxrwxr-x root   root          0 Mon, 2016-02-15 19:04:49 +0100 bin
-rwxr-xr-x root   root    1029624 Thu, 2014-11-13 00:08:51 +0100 bin/bash
lrwxrwxrwx root   root          6 Fri, 2015-03-27 20:24:26 +0100 bin/bzcmp -> bzdiff
-rwxr-xr-x root   root       2140 Fri, 2015-03-27 20:24:22 +0100 bin/bzdiff
...

Now let's gatekeep with a pattern 💅

$ borg list root-2016-02-15 --pattern "- bin/ba*"
drwxr-xr-x root   root          0 Mon, 2016-02-15 17:44:27 +0100 .
drwxrwxr-x root   root          0 Mon, 2016-02-15 19:04:49 +0100 bin
lrwxrwxrwx root   root          6 Fri, 2015-03-27 20:24:26 +0100 bin/bzcmp -> bzdiff
-rwxr-xr-x root   root       2140 Fri, 2015-03-27 20:24:22 +0100 bin/bzdiff
...

Custom --format, because the default fit was cute but we want ✨aesthetic✨:

$ borg list archiveA --format="{mode} {user:6} {group:6} {size:8d} {isomtime} {path}{extra}{NEWLINE}"
drwxrwxr-x user   user          0 2015-02-01T11:00:00.000000+01:00 .
drwxrwxr-x user   user          0 2015-02-01T11:00:00.000000+01:00 code
drwxrwxr-x user   user          0 2015-02-01T11:00:00.000000+01:00 code/myproject
-rw-rw-r-- user   user    1416192 2015-02-01T11:00:00.000000+01:00 code/myproject/file.ext
-rw-rw-r-- user   user    1416192 2015-02-01T11:00:00.000000+01:00 code/myproject/file.text
...

Regex include + exclude-everything-else combo. Watch the \. — it matters, no cap:

$ borg list archiveA --pattern '+ re:\.ext$' --pattern '- re:^.*$'
-rw-rw-r-- user   user    1416192 Sun, 2015-02-01 11:00:00 +0100 code/myproject/file.ext
...

And the same vibe but without the escaping, so . matches any char and file.text sneaks in too:

$ borg list archiveA --pattern '+ re:.ext$' --pattern '- re:^.*$'
-rw-rw-r-- user   user    1416192 Sun, 2015-02-01 11:00:00 +0100 code/myproject/file.ext
-rw-rw-r-- user   user    1416192 Sun, 2015-02-01 11:00:00 +0100 code/myproject/file.text
...

Sorting time, bestie 🎀

# Use --sort-by with a comma-separated list; sorts apply stably from last to first.
# Here: primary by size descending, tie-breaker by path ascending.
# Note the quoting - ">" would otherwise be a shell redirection.
$ borg list archiveA --sort-by='>size,path' --format='{size:8d} {path}{NL}'
 1416192 code/myproject/file.ext
 1416192 code/myproject/file.text
       0 .
...

💜 NOTES 💜

🌈 The FORMAT specifier syntax

The --format option uses Python's format string syntax <https://docs.python.org/3.11/library/string.html#formatstrings>. It's giving f-strings but in Borg. Obsessed.

Examples:

$ borg list --format '{mode} {user:6} {group:6} {size:8} {mtime} {path}{extra}{NL}' ArchiveFoo
-rw-rw-r-- user   user       1024 Thu, 2021-12-09 10:22:17 file-foo
...
# {VAR:<NUMBER} - pad to NUMBER columns left-aligned.
# {VAR:>NUMBER} - pad to NUMBER columns right-aligned.
$ borg list --format '{mode} {user:>6} {group:>6} {size:<8} {mtime} {path}{extra}{NL}' ArchiveFoo
-rw-rw-r--   user   user 1024     Thu, 2021-12-09 10:22:17 file-foo
...

The following keys are always available:

  • NEWLINE: OS dependent line separator
  • NL: alias of NEWLINE
  • NUL: NUL character for creating print0 / xargs -0 like output
  • SPACE: space character
  • TAB: tab character
  • CR: carriage return character
  • LF: line feed character

Keys available only when listing files in an archive:

  • type: file type (file, dir, symlink, ...)
  • mode: file mode (as in stat)
  • uid: user id of file owner
  • gid: group id of file owner
  • user: user name of file owner
  • group: group name of file owner
  • path: file path
  • target: link target for symlinks
  • hlid: hard link identity (same if hardlinking same fs object)
  • inode: inode number
  • flags: file flags
  • size: file size
  • num_chunks: number of chunks in this file
  • mtime: file modification time
  • ctime: file change time
  • atime: file access time
  • isomtime: file modification time (ISO 8601 format)
  • isoctime: file change time (ISO 8601 format)
  • isoatime: file access time (ISO 8601 format)
  • fingerprint: Fingerprint of the file content (may have false negatives), format: H(conditions)-H(chunk_ids)
  • blake2b
  • blake2s
  • blake3
  • md5
  • sha1
  • sha224
  • sha256
  • sha384
  • sha3_224
  • sha3_256
  • sha3_384
  • sha3_512
  • sha512
  • archiveid: internal ID of the archive
  • archivename: name of the archive
  • extra: prepends {target} with " -> " for soft links and " link to " for hard links

🌈 Sorting

Use --sort-by SPEC where SPEC is a comma-separated list of fields. Sorts are applied stably from last to first in the given list, thus the first field is the primary sort criterion. Prepend ">" for descending, "<" (or no prefix) for ascending order, e.g. --sort-by='>size,path' (quote it, ">" is a shell redirection).

🚨 bestie please quote that > — the shell will absolutely try to redirect if you don't, and then you'll have a bad time.

Supported fields, sorting by the same value that --format would print:

  • path: the item path
  • type, mode: the file type character resp. the full file mode string
  • user, group: the owner/group name, or the numeric id if the name is not known
  • uid, gid: the numeric owner/group id
  • size: the file size (same as {size}, 0 for items without content)
  • mtime, ctime, atime: the timestamps (atime/ctime fall back to mtime if not stored)

There is no birthtime field, as there is no {birthtime} format key either. (If you were about to ask — no. 🙈)

The sort fields are independent of --format, you may sort by a field you do not print.

💀 Note: --sort-by needs to read all (matching) items into memory before it can print anything, so listing a huge archive this way needs a lot of memory and delays the first output line. Without --sort-by, items are streamed and their order is undefined. If memory usage is a problem, consider borg list --format ... | sort instead.

👑 SEE ALSO 👑

borg-common(1), borg-info(1), borg-diff(1), borg-prune(1), borg-patterns(1), borg-repo-list(1)

🫶 Author 🫶

The Borg Collective

okay that's the whole page!! this was borg backup tool, borg-list(1), dated 2026-10-07 — slay, go list something, and remember: quote your > 💖✨🎀🦋

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