Direct Access

We offer you the ability to directly access your backup data stored at Wasabi.

We do this so you can go around us completely and verify for yourself that we’re doing everything we say we’re doing – encrypting, compressing, and de-duplicating your backup data in the format specified in Arq Cloud Backup Data Format.

To get direct access to your data:

  1. Go to cloud.arqbackup.com, log in, click Account from the menu, and click the Create Credentials button at the bottom of the page. We’ll generate read-only credentials (access key ID and secret access key) for you to directly access your account’s backups. We’ll present them as a JSON file, like this:
{
    "access_key_id": "2NDLFMJAGYXE1Z6KB8HZ",
    "secret_access_key": "VkTNJ37ykTQF5fashPJYKduzyMPTvyzAFjYLIzZ3",
    "region_name": "us-east-1",
    "bucket_name": "arq-cloud-user-453642a8-55fd-451d-a026-22543399ab51"
}
  1. Save that JSON as a file called arqcloudrestore.config in your Downloads directory.
  2. Download arqcloudrestore.zip and unzip it to get arqcloudrestore in your Downloads directory.
  3. Open Terminal, type cd Downloads and press Return; then type arqcloudrestore listplans and press Return to list your “plans” (your computers being backed up).
  4. Follow the instructions to list your backup records, download files, etc.

The tool arqcloudrestore tool isn’t a substitute for the Arq Cloud Backup app – the Arq Cloud Backup app is much easier to use, can restore much faster, can retry on network errors etc. But arqcloudrestore lets you see the inner workings of how to decrypt and restore your files, if you’re interested in understanding how that works.

You can also use a tool like the AWS CLI to list the objects in your account. To list and download files with the AWS CLI, follow the steps in the Wasabi knowledge base article. Use the access key ID and secret access key given by the Create Credentials button mentioned above. All the files and their formats are documented in Arq Cloud Backup Data Format.