How do I get notified when my backup finishes?

A backup you never confirm is a backup you can't trust. The trouble is most backup jobs run silently overnight, so a failed one can go unnoticed for weeks — until you actually need to restore. The fix is to have the job report to your phone every time it runs. Lert turns that into two lines of bash: your unique link is the endpoint, so there's no account, no key, and nothing to install.

Set it up in under 30 seconds

1. Download the app. Open it once — there's no account to create.
2. Copy your link. A private link like https://lert.dev/p/your-id is on screen; one tap copies it.
3. Wrap the backup. Run it, check the exit code, and POST success or failure to your Lert link.

Whether the backup succeeds or fails, your phone buzzes with the outcome — even locked in your pocket.

The code

#!/usr/bin/env bash
if restic backup /data; then
  MSG="Backup completed successfully"
else
  MSG="Backup FAILED — check the logs"
fi

curl -X POST "https://lert.dev/p/your-id" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d "{\"title\":\"Backup job\",\"body\":\"$MSG\"}"

No headers beyond content type, no auth token, no SDK. Swap restic for rsync, pg_dump, tar, or whatever you use — the pattern is the same. Point your nightly cron entry at this script and you'll get one buzz per run.

Related things people wire up

• A notification from a cron job
• When disk space runs low
• When a server restarts
• Backup notifications
• Full cron push guide

It's free for one channel and 50 notifications a day; Lert Pro is $2.99/month for unlimited. See the docs for the full API.