US Patent 9152507 Pruning unwanted file content from an image backup

Pruning unwanted file content from an image backup. In one example embodiment, a method of pruning unwanted file content from an image backup includes identifying files to be excluded from a base image backup of a source storage, identifying a set of all allocated blocks in the source storage at a first point in time by accessing a file system block allocation map (FSBAM), pruning the set of all allocated blocks to exclude the allocated blocks that correspond to content of the files to be excluded, backing up the pruned set of allocated blocks, and not backing up the excluded allocated blocks, in the base image backup, and restoring the base image backup to a restore storage, the restoring including pruning FSM of a file system of the restore storage to modify metadata associated with the files to be excluded prior to exposing the file system to any user.