---
title: How to inspect your backups
---
## Backup progress

By default, borgmatic runs proceed silently except in the case of errors. But
if you'd like to to get additional information about the progress of the
backup as it proceeds, use the verbosity option:

```bash
borgmatic --verbosity 1
```

This lists the files that borgmatic is archiving, which are those that are new
or changed since the last backup.

Or, for even more progress and debug spew:

```bash
borgmatic --verbosity 2
```

## Backup summary

If you're less concerned with progress during a backup, and you only want to
see the summary of archive statistics at the end, you can use the stats
option when performing a backup:

```bash
borgmatic --stats
```

## Existing backups

borgmatic provides convenient actions for Borg's
[list](https://borgbackup.readthedocs.io/en/stable/usage/list.html) and
[info](https://borgbackup.readthedocs.io/en/stable/usage/info.html)
functionality:


```bash
borgmatic list
borgmatic info
```

(No borgmatic `list` or `info` actions? Try the old-style `--list` or
`--info`. Or upgrade borgmatic!)


## Logging

By default, borgmatic logs to a local syslog-compatible daemon if one is
present and borgmatic is running in a non-interactive console. Where those
logs show up depends on your particular system. If you're using systemd, try
running `journalctl -xe`. Otherwise, try viewing `/var/log/syslog` or
similiar.

You can customize the log level used for syslog logging with the
`--syslog-verbosity` flag, and this is independent from the console logging
`--verbosity` flag described above. For instance, to get additional
information about the progress of the backup as it proceeds:

```bash
borgmatic --syslog-verbosity 1
```

Or to increase syslog logging to include debug spew:

```bash
borgmatic --syslog-verbosity 2
```

### systemd journal

If your local syslog daemon is systemd's journal, be aware that journald by
default throttles the rate at which a particular program can log. So you may
need to [change the journald rate
limit](https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/journald.conf.html#RateLimitIntervalSec=)
in `/etc/systemd/journald.conf` if you're finding that borgmatic journald logs
are missing.

Note that the [sample borgmatic systemd service
file](https://torsion.org/borgmatic/docs/how-to/set-up-backups/#systemd)
already has this rate limit disabled.


## Related documentation

 * [Set up backups with borgmatic](https://torsion.org/borgmatic/docs/how-to/set-up-backups/)
 * [Monitor your backups](https://torsion.org/borgmatic/docs/how-to/monitor-your-backups/)
 * [Add preparation and cleanup steps to backups](https://torsion.org/borgmatic/docs/how-to/add-preparation-and-cleanup-steps-to-backups/)
 * [Develop on borgmatic](https://torsion.org/borgmatic/docs/how-to/develop-on-borgmatic/)