What will need to be backed up? - confirm paths on screen ($HOME) /var/www Where will it backup to? x Prompt for current dir/new dir? Or maybe passed as an arg? File name? Get the date and time automatically date "+%Y%m%d_%H%M" Command: $timestamp = $(date "+%Y%m%d_%H%M") $filename = "backup_$timestamp.tar.gz" tar -czvf /tmp/$filename /var/www $HOME | grep 'tar:' Save variables to a file in /tmp, and read them on launch only way to save variables across instances of the script Find a way to see grep returns no results and convey that to the user Add option to generate a reusable run&forget script that'd work with cron for automation Maybe ability to add an entry to the user's crontab automatically? line="* * * * * /path/to/command" (crontab -u $(whoami) -l; echo "$line" ) | crontab -u $(whoami) -