אני רוצה גיבוי לפני שהקובץ יימחק.

A word-by-word breakdown is:

• אני = I
• רוצה = want
  
  • This is the form used by a male speaker.
  • A female speaker would say רוצה too, but it is pronounced differently in context only if pointed; in normal writing it looks the same. In speech, both are usually rotze / rotza depending on the speaker:
    • male: ani rotze
    • female: ani rotza
• גיבוי = backup
• לפני = before
• ש־ = that / when / before, depending on context; here it introduces a clause after before
• הקובץ = the file
• יימחק = will be deleted / will be erased

So the structure is basically:

I want backup before the file will-be-deleted

which is the normal Hebrew way to express I want a backup before the file is deleted.

Hebrew does not have an indefinite article like English a / an.

So:

• גיבוי = backup / a backup
• הגיבוי = the backup

That means אני רוצה גיבוי naturally means I want a backup.

The marker את is used before a definite direct object, not an indefinite one.

Compare:

• אני רוצה גיבוי = I want a backup
  
  • no את, because גיבוי is indefinite
• אני רוצה את הגיבוי = I want the backup
  
  • את appears because הגיבוי is definite

This is a very common point for English speakers, because English does not mark direct objects this way.

לפני by itself means before, but when it is followed by a full clause, Hebrew usually uses לפני ש־.

So:

• לפני המחיקה = before the deletion
  
  • followed by a noun phrase
• לפני שהקובץ יימחק = before the file is deleted / before the file will be deleted
  
  • followed by a full clause

In your sentence, הקובץ יימחק is a clause, so לפני ש־ is the natural choice.

Because in Hebrew, after words like לפני ש־ and אחרי ש־, an action that has not happened yet is often expressed with the future.

So Hebrew says:

• לפני שהקובץ יימחק
  literally: before the file will be deleted

But in natural English, this is usually translated as:

• before the file is deleted

This is a normal tense difference between the two languages. Hebrew is focusing on the fact that the deletion is still in the future.

יימחק comes from the root מ־ח־ק, which is related to erasing / deleting.

The base active verb is:

• מחק = he erased / deleted

But יימחק is in the נפעל (Nif‘al) pattern, which often gives a passive or intransitive meaning. So here it means:

• יימחק = will be deleted / will get erased

That is why the sentence does not need to say who deletes the file. The focus is on what happens to the file.

Because Hebrew often attaches short grammatical words directly to the following word.

Here you have:

• ש־ = a connector meaning something like that / when / before
• הקובץ = the file

These combine in writing as:

• שהקובץ

This is completely normal in Hebrew. Many little words are written as prefixes, such as:

• ו־ = and
• ב־ = in
• ל־ = to
• ה־ = the
• ש־ = that / which / when depending on context

This is a spelling feature of modern Hebrew without vowel marks.

The form is pronounced roughly yimáchek. In standard full spelling, many future forms in patterns like this are written with יי at the beginning:

• יימחק
• ייכנס
• יישבר

So the double י is mainly an orthographic convention that helps represent the vowel pattern in unpointed Hebrew.

A common pronunciation is:

Ani rotze gibuy lifnei shehakovetz yimachek.

If the speaker is female:

Ani rotza gibuy lifnei shehakovetz yimachek.

Rough guide:

• אני = ah-NEE
• רוצה = ro-TSEH (male) / ro-TSAH (female)
• גיבוי = gee-BOOY
• לפני = lif-NAY
• שהקובץ = she-ha-KO-vetz
• יימחק = yi-ma-KHEK

The כ in יימחק is the throaty sound like German Bach or Scottish loch.

Yes. A slightly more formal or condensed version is:

אני רוצה גיבוי לפני מחיקת הקובץ.

This literally means:

I want a backup before the deletion of the file.

Both are natural, but they feel a bit different:

• לפני שהקובץ יימחק = more verbal, more everyday, emphasizes the event
• לפני מחיקת הקובץ = more compact, a bit more formal or written

Usually גיבוי does mean backup, especially in computer or technical contexts, so in this sentence that is clearly the meaning.

In other contexts, גיבוי can also mean support / backing, depending on the situation. For example, someone can receive גיבוי from a manager or a team.

But with קובץ (file), the computer meaning is the obvious one.