Some examples include backing up and retrieving data in a distributed backup system. For instance, a server may receive a request to backup multiple data files of a user to multiple computing devices associated with the user. Each of the multiple computing devices may be associated with one or more data backup policies for storing a set of data files. The server may identify, for each of the data files, the one or more data backup policies with which the corresponding data file matches and a corresponding set of the multiple computing devices associated with the one or more of the data backup policies. Further, the server may transmit each of the data files to the corresponding set of computing devices.