arqc command-line utility

Arq includes a command-line utility you can use to configure things and retrieve status information. On macOS it’s located at

/Applications/Arq.app/Contents/Resources/arqc

On Windows it’s located at

C:\Program Files (x86)\Arq 7\arqcExe\arqc.exe

Usage

arqc acceptLicenseAgreement

Accept Arq’s license agreement (required before using Arq).

arqc activateLicense

Activate the Arq 7 or Arq Pro license code.

arqc refreshLicense

Refresh the current license information.

arqc deactivateLicense

Deactivate the license activation.

arqc setAppPassword

Set the password for accessing Arq.

arqc listBackupPlans

List the active backup plans, including UUID, name and storage location.

arqc stats

Print a health snapshot of this computer’s backups as JSON, intended for monitoring tools (Watchman Monitoring and similar). It answers “is this computer backed up, are there errors, and how much storage is in use?” in a single call.

Everything is read from Arq’s local database. No network requests are made and no backup-set encryption password is needed, so it’s inexpensive enough to poll on a schedule.

Only active backup plans are included.

The command exits 0 whenever the snapshot was produced; it does not use the exit code to signal that backups are unhealthy. Decide what counts as unhealthy from the fields below.

Example:

{
  "schemaVersion" : 1,
  "generatedAt" : "2026-07-22T18:04:11Z",
  "arqVersion" : "7.46.1",
  "autoUpdate" : true,
  "appPasswordIsSet" : true,
  "lastBackedUp" : "2026-07-22T14:02:00Z",
  "totalStoredBytes" : 493820193,
  "backupPlans" : [
    {
      "uuid" : "A1B2C3D4-....",
      "name" : "Documents",
      "lastBackedUp" : "2026-07-22T14:02:00Z",
      "schedule" : { "type" : "Hourly", "everyHours" : 1, "minutesAfterHour" : 0 },
      "destination" : { "name" : "My B2 bucket", "type" : "b2" },
      "storedBytes" : 12345678,
      "backupRecordCount" : 412,
      "containedFilesCount" : 90210,
      "totalSize" : 87654321,
      "latestActivity" : {
        "startedAt" : "2026-07-22T14:00:00Z",
        "finishedAt" : "2026-07-22T14:02:00Z",
        "aborted" : false,
        "filesProcessed" : 120,
        "bytesProcessed" : 4096000,
        "errorCount" : 1,
        "maxErrorSeverity" : "Moderate",
        "errors" : [
          { "severity" : "Moderate", "message" : "Permission denied", "path" : "/Users/me/private" }
        ]
      }
    }
  ]
}

Conventions

All dates are ISO 8601 in UTC.

A field that is null means “this does not exist yet” — for example a plan that has never completed a backup. A field that is missing entirely means “Arq cannot determine this value”. Never treat either as 0.

Top-level fields

• schemaVersion — integer, currently 1. Incremented if a future release changes the format in a way that could break existing consumers. Check it before parsing.
• generatedAt — when the snapshot was produced.
• arqVersion — the version of Arq that produced it.
• autoUpdate — whether Arq is set to install updates automatically.
• appPasswordIsSet — false means the Arq app password is still the built-in default, so anyone who can reach the agent can control Arq. true means one has been set.
• lastBackedUp — when this computer was last fully backed up. This is the oldest lastBackedUp among the active plans, and it is null if any active plan has never completed a backup. It is deliberately not the most recent: a single neglected plan should be visible rather than hidden behind a healthy one. This is the field to alert on for “has this computer been backed up recently?”.
• totalStoredBytes — total bytes stored across all active plans, as Arq accounts for them. This is Arq’s own record of what it has uploaded, not a live query of the destinations.
• backupPlans — array, described below.

Backup plan fields

• uuid, name — the plan’s identifier and display name.
• lastBackedUp — when this plan last completed a backup with no high-severity errors; null if that has never happened. A plan that runs every hour but fails every time keeps an old (or null) lastBackedUp.
• schedule — the plan’s schedule, verbatim. See the schedule values below.
• destination — { "name": ..., "type": ... }, or null if the storage location could not be read. See the destination types below.
• storedBytes — bytes stored for this plan. Missing if the plan’s local database could not be opened, or if the plan has not yet been initialized.
• backupRecordCount — how many backup records exist for the plan. Missing under the same conditions as storedBytes.

• containedFilesCount, totalSize — how many files, and how many bytes of original data, are currently backed up. These are summed over the most recent completed backup of each folder in the plan, so they describe the current state of the backup rather than a running total across every version.

  These two are omitted together if any of the contributing backup records was written by a version of Arq that predates this field, or came from Arq 5. A partial sum would look like a complete one, so Arq reports nothing instead. They fill in as each folder is backed up again.

• latestActivity — the plan’s most recent backup run, or null if it has never run.

Latest activity fields

• startedAt — when the run began.
• finishedAt — when it ended, or null if it is still running.
• aborted — whether the run was cancelled or stopped before completing.
• filesProcessed, bytesProcessed — how much was examined during this run. These describe one run and are unrelated to containedFilesCount / totalSize, which describe the whole backup.
• errorCount — the true number of errors in the run, even when errors is truncated.
• maxErrorSeverity — the highest severity among the run’s errors, or "None" if there were none. See below.
• errors — up to 25 errors, each { "severity", "message", "path" }. path is omitted when the error is not about a specific file. Compare the array length with errorCount to detect truncation.

maxErrorSeverity and severity values

• "High" — the backup could not produce a useful result. Database corruption, a corrupt uploaded object, a server error, an unmounted volume, a lost SMB connection, a licensing or trial problem, a wrong encryption password, or a missing keyset. Pre-flight failures — insufficient free space, snapshot creation, Full Disk Access, plan configuration — are also High. A run with a High error does not update lastBackedUp. This is the value to alert on.
• "Moderate" — an individual file could not be backed up, while the rest of the run succeeded. Typically permissions or a file that disappeared mid-backup. These do not prevent lastBackedUp from advancing.
• "None" — maxErrorSeverity only. The run had no errors at all.
• "Unclassified" — an error was recorded but no severity was assigned to it. Rare.
• "Filtered", "Retried" — reserved. The current release never produces them; they exist so that future releases can mark errors that were suppressed or that succeeded on a retry. Consumers should tolerate them.

destination.type values

arqpremium, s3, s3compatible, wasabi, b2, googlecloudstorage, googledrive, dropbox, onedrive, sharepoint, pcloud, sftp, folder, storj, filebase, megas4, tencent, amazondrive.

schedule.type values

• "Hourly" — uses everyHours and minutesAfterHour.
• "Daily" — uses timeOfDay.
• "Weekly" — uses dayOfWeek, timeOfDay and everyWeeks.
• "Manual" — no automatic schedule; the plan runs only when started explicitly. Note that a Manual plan’s lastBackedUp will legitimately grow old.

schedule is passed through as Arq stores it, so keys belonging to the other schedule types may also be present. Read only the keys listed for the reported type. startWhenVolumeIsConnected applies to all types.

arqc latestBackupActivityLog

Print the activity log for the latest backup activity for the given backup plan UUID.

arqc latestBackupActivityJSON

Print the metadata of the latest backup activity for the given backup plan UUID, in JSON form.

arqc startBackupPlan

Start the backup plan matching the UUID.

arqc stopBackupPlan

Stop (abort) the backup plan matching the UUID.

arqc pauseBackups

Pause all backup activity for the given number of minutes.

arqc resumeBackups

Resume previously paused in-progress and scheduled backup activity before the pause-resume-date.