Compress Remote — Reduce Cloud Backup Size Automatically in RcloneView
Your 500 GB backup could be 300 GB with compression. The compress remote wraps any cloud provider with automatic gzip compression — smaller backups, lower costs, same data.
Cloud storage costs scale with size. If you can reduce the size of your backups by 30-60%, you save that much on storage bills every month. Rclone's compress remote provides transparent compression — files are compressed before upload and decompressed on download, with no manual steps required. RcloneView lets you set this up visually and manage compressed backups alongside your other cloud accounts.
Manage & Sync All Clouds in One Place
RcloneView is a cross-platform GUI for rclone. Compare folders, transfer or sync files, and automate multi-cloud workflows with a clean, visual interface.
- One-click jobs: Copy · Sync · Compare
- Schedulers & history for reliable automation
- Works with Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox, S3, WebDAV, SFTP and more
Free core features. Plus automations available.
How Compress Remote Works
A compress remote wraps another remote (Google Drive, S3, B2, etc.) and automatically:
- Compresses files using gzip before uploading
- Decompresses files transparently when downloading
- Skips already-compressed formats (jpg, mp4, zip, etc.) to avoid wasting CPU
You interact with the compress remote like any other remote — browse, copy, sync — but files on the destination are stored compressed.
Compression Savings by File Type
| File Type | Typical Compression | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Text files, CSV, logs | 60-90% smaller | 100 MB → 10-40 MB |
| Office documents (docx, xlsx) | 5-15% smaller | Already somewhat compressed |
| Database dumps | 50-80% smaller | 1 GB → 200-500 MB |
| Source code | 60-80% smaller | 500 MB → 100-200 MB |
| Photos (JPG, PNG) | ~0% | Already compressed |
| Video (MP4, MKV) | ~0% | Already compressed |
| ZIP/RAR archives | ~0% | Already compressed |
Best for: text-heavy data, logs, database backups, source code, uncompressed data formats. Not useful for: photos, videos, and already-compressed archives.
Set Up a Compress Remote
Create a compress remote that wraps your existing storage remote. Then use the compress remote as your backup destination instead of the raw remote.
Use Cases
Compress log backups
Server logs compress extremely well (80-90%). A 50 GB log archive becomes 5-10 GB on cloud storage.
Reduce database backup costs
Daily database dumps are highly compressible. Compress them before upload to reduce cloud storage bills.
Source code archives
Development projects with thousands of text files benefit significantly from compression.
Schedule compressed backups
Important Notes
- CPU overhead: compression uses CPU during upload and download. Modern CPUs handle this easily.
- Not all files compress: already-compressed formats (JPG, MP4, ZIP) pass through uncompressed.
- Transparent access: files appear normal when browsing through the compress remote — decompression happens automatically.
- Combined with encryption: you can layer compress + crypt remotes for compressed AND encrypted backups.
Getting Started
- Download RcloneView from rcloneview.com.
- Add your cloud storage as a regular remote.
- Create a compress remote wrapping it.
- Use the compress remote as your backup destination.
- Enjoy smaller backups and lower costs.
Smaller backups, lower bills, same data.
Related Guides:
Supported Cloud Providers
