Mido77 Posted January 28, 2025 Share Posted January 28, 2025 Recently, a friend of mine had his SSD die on his MacBook, and he spent a ton of money recovering his files. After hearing his story about those expensive recovery services and the whole situation, I started thinking that I really need to protect my data with proper backups. I have an external hard drive I bought during a sale at Best Buy but never got around to using. Can anyone recommend the best backup software for Mac? I don’t want to use Time Machine because I feel like it’s a bit too basic and doesn’t have enough features. Quote Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/360593-what-is-the-best-third-party-backup-software-for-mac/ Share on other sites More sharing options...
TechieGuru99 Posted January 28, 2025 Share Posted January 28, 2025 I don’t think you need to reinvent the wheel here. In your situation, it makes sense to rely on what Apple specifically developed for macOS: Time Machine. Its free Mac backup software allows you to back up files from your Mac to an external device or even a network storage solution. I’d also point out that with Time Machine enabled, your system drive creates hourly snapshots of files that are stored for 24 hours, even if your backup drive isn’t connected. This means you can restore files if the loss occurred recently, even without a full backup. I’m not sure where the idea that Time Machine has limited functionality comes from, but in my opinion, it’s one of the best backup solutions for mac. Proof that I use it myself) 3 Quote Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/360593-what-is-the-best-third-party-backup-software-for-mac/#findComment-2830020 Share on other sites More sharing options...
UrbanExplorer7 Posted January 28, 2025 Share Posted January 28, 2025 Personally, I use and totally recommend Carbon Copy Cloner for backups. It’s got a ton of settings where you can create separate backup scenarios. Like you can have one task to back up your work folder with documents daily, while your folder with images only gets backed up once a month. And it can all happen on different drives with email reminders and everything! 📩 I’m not gonna list all the features here ’cause I’m not their PR guy 😅, but if you’re curious, just check out their site. It’s worth a look. 3 Quote Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/360593-what-is-the-best-third-party-backup-software-for-mac/#findComment-2830021 Share on other sites More sharing options...
verdazil Posted January 28, 2025 Share Posted January 28, 2025 @Mido77, You can try the very flexible and free Syncthing 4 Quote Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/360593-what-is-the-best-third-party-backup-software-for-mac/#findComment-2830022 Share on other sites More sharing options...
PixelDreamer5 Posted January 28, 2025 Share Posted January 28, 2025 1 hour ago, Mido77 said: Recently, a friend of mine had his SSD die on his MacBook, and he spent a ton of money recovering his files. After hearing his story about those expensive recovery services and the whole situation, I started thinking that I really need to protect my data with proper backups. I have an external hard drive I bought during a sale at Best Buy but never got around to using. Can anyone recommend the best backup software for Mac? I don’t want to use Time Machine because I feel like it’s a bit too basic and doesn’t have enough features. After working with Macs for a while, I’ve come up with a small list of backup software for macos that all do their own thing. Here’s how I use them iDrive - I use this one for cloud backups of my important files. It’s super convenient though it’s not free. They give you 5GB free when you sign up to try it out. Honestly a cool tool for daily backups of files Disk Drill - This app is mostly for file recovery but it has a free byte to byte backup feature for devices or partitions. It’s helped me so many times when friends brought over old or broken drives. I’d make a full backup of the device with it then scan that copy to recover files instead of stressing the actual hardware. Real lifesaver in those cases Clonezilla - Great for when a system drive won’t boot like my friend’s did once. You can back it up through a bootable device. Simple and works ChronoSync - Kind of like Time Machine but with more features like backing up to Amazon Cloud or Google Drive. It even syncs between devices if you need that. Definitely worth looking at Most of these have trial versions so you can try them out first and see which one fits best Hope this helps) 1 Quote Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/360593-what-is-the-best-third-party-backup-software-for-mac/#findComment-2830023 Share on other sites More sharing options...
D_Harris_05 Posted January 28, 2025 Share Posted January 28, 2025 I agree with @UrbanExplorer7 CCC is incredibly convenient for backups. I’ve set it up to back up my work documents to my NAS server. Highly recommend it! 👍 1 Quote Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/360593-what-is-the-best-third-party-backup-software-for-mac/#findComment-2830026 Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeB76 Posted January 28, 2025 Share Posted January 28, 2025 Surprised no one’s mentioned Acronis True Image yet. With this app you can back up files to your disk and the cloud at the same time making it almost impossible to lose important stuff. It also has built-in cybersecurity protection which saved my Mac a few times (Haha, of course, that’s from the software’s notices) since I often download tons of software from the internet and not all of it’s safe. Plus there’s a disk cloning feature if you need to copy your drive for another PC 1 Quote Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/360593-what-is-the-best-third-party-backup-software-for-mac/#findComment-2830027 Share on other sites More sharing options...
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