Your Mac probably contains hundreds of important documents and thousands of sentimental photos. If you don’t have a backup, a single careless moment could lose them all forever. A spill from a cup of coffee, a fall onto a concrete floor, or an opportunistic thief are all enough for your data to be gone for good. Trust me, you want to back up everything. In this article I’ll discuss the different types of Mac backup software available, explain the features necessary for the best backup software solutions for Macs, and list eight of the best Mac backup software choices. Different Types of Backup Software for Macs When it comes to backing up your Mac, there are several different kinds of backups:. Cloud Storage like Dropbox or Google Drive is a great first line of defence.
With their basic versioning systems, they also stop you accidentally deleting a file and make sure you can’t lose your only copy in a single mishap. A local backup—like Time Machine—is perfect for quickly restoring large files and giving you a bit of added security. However, a local backup is still vulnerable to things like fire, flooding, and theft. If your house burns down with your Mac inside, your backup drive isn’t likely to survive either.
Best Backup Software for Macs. Now that we’ve discussed what to look for in Mac backup software, let’s look at the apps. Here are my picks for the best Mac backup software for 2018: 1. Time Machine. Time Machine is built into macOS and it should be your first go to as Mac backup software. Mac Backup Guru costs $29 per computer for a one-time licensing fee. Hybrid local and cloud backup services. Ideally, you should have both a local backup program in place and an off-site cloud-based backup service. The combination of Time Machine and iCloud Drive is a great example of using both.
A bootable clone is like a local backup but, instead of just storing a copy of your files, it stores a copy of your whole operating system. This means that if the hard drive in your computer fails, you can boot directly from your backup hard drive. A cloud back up service like Backblaze stores all your files offsite. This means they’re safe from the kind of things that can take out a local backup. The problem is that restoring a large number of files from an online offsite backup is very time consuming. It can also take a bit of time before your files upload which means that if you accidentally delete a file you recently created, it might not be available. Cloud backups are a brilliant, bulletproof option, but they aren’t great as your only option.
There’s a saying when it comes to digital backups (and emergency supplies): one is none and two is one. The different backup options aren’t competing, instead you should. To give you an idea of what this looks like, let’s take my current backup setup. Every important file and everything I’m currently working on—like this article—is saved in Dropbox. Instead of using a Documents folder, I’ve got. The only exception to this is large numbers of photos. This means that whatever happens to my Mac, the stuff I’m working on at the moment is safe.
I could spill my coffee all over it, but at least this article would be safe. About once a week, I connect an external hard drive to my Mac for an hour or two. Time Machine automatically backs everything up to the drive. This just means I’ve got a local copy of every file whatever happens. I also have Backblaze running in the background. It’s constantly backing up my files to Backblaze’s servers.
If the worst comes to the worst and every piece of tech I own is destroyed, at least my files are safe. I hope I never have to use it, but it’s very comforting to know it’s there. At the moment, I don’t use a clone backup, however, when I was, I had one. It was great to be able to roll back my Hackintosh to a stable system at any time.
I always took a new clone before I updated anything or made major changes to how it ran. What We’re Looking For in a Mac Backup Software Solution A good backup app needs to do one thing really well: back up your files. You can’t be left thinking something is backed up when it really isn’t. We’re going to look at some great back up apps in each of the four categories above: local backups, clone backups, cloud backups, and cloud storage. Each app we’ll look at is one of the best in its class. Most of them are apps that people on the Tuts+ team rely on to protect our own data.
I’ve personally relied on five of them at various different stages and confidently recommend them all. Since we’re really looking at four different kinds of apps, there’s no one feature set we want.
We aren’t going to ding Time Machine for not backing up to an offsite server. Instead, for inclusion, each app had to have what we felt were the most important features for that kind of backup app. For example, a local backup should really have some kind of versioning, a clone needs to be easily bootable, and so on. Best Backup Software for Macs Now that we’ve discussed what to look for in Mac backup software, let’s look at the apps. Here are my picks for the best Mac backup software for 2018: 1.
Time Machine Time Machine is built into macOS and it should be your first go to as Mac backup software. Since it’s entirely free and dead simple to use (plug in hard drive, wait), there’s really no excuse for not having a Time Machine backup in addition to whatever other backup plan you have. Time Machine isn’t perfect—no local backup is—so we would recommend you use at least one other solution as well. Backblaze is my favorite cloud backup solution.
For $5/month for each computer you want to back up, you can keep all your files totally safe. All your important data gets uploaded to Backblaze’s secure servers. If you’re concerned about Backblaze slowing down your network, you can set an upload limit, schedule backups for when you’re asleep, or just let auto throttling do its thing. If the worst comes to the worst and you need to restore some files, you can easily download them from Backblaze’s website. They also keep versions of each file for 30 days if you ever need to recover an early version. If you’re trying to restore an entire computer worth of data, you can order a 128GB USB key or 4TB hard drive with your data on it instead of waiting for it all to download. Carbonite offers much the same service as Backblaze.
For an annual fee, an unlimited amount of data on a single computer is backed up to their servers. At any time, you can log in and restore single files or everything. Carbonite, however, comes with a couple of caveats. For example, video files are only backed up automatically if you’re prepared to sign up for the $111.99/year Plus plan. Similarly, if you want your data couriered to you, you’ll need to be on the $149.99/year Prime plan; Backblaze, on the other hand, charges a fee only if you choose to use a physical delivery, rather than having it built into the plan.
Is one of the best disk cloning apps for Mac. While there’s a paid version available for $27.95, the free version has all the features most people need. You can use SuperDuper! As a regular backup app that copies files and folders to another hard drive, but it’s real strength is creating bootable clones. As discussed above, they make it a lot easier to get up and running again if your Mac’s hard drive fails. The paid version of SuperDuper!
Adds a few useful features. One neat one is Smart Update which can update your existing clone backups; this means that SuperDuper! Doesn’t have to create a totally new backup each time.
You can also schedule backups to run. Carbon Copy Cloner, like SuperDuper!, can create bootable backups and regular backups.
The big difference is that the interface is a bit nicer and it’s easier for you to fully customise what files get backed up. If you want a separate back up of a few important files and folders in addition to a bootable clone, Carbon Copy Cloner is the way to go. The downside is that there’s only a 30-day free trial.
Carbon Copy Cloner is definitely worth the nearly forty dollars, but only if you’re going to use the extra features. If not, stick with SuperDuper!
Dropbox isn’t traditional backup software for a Mac and shouldn’t be treated as such. However, it’s a great place to keep the files you’re working on as soon as you create them. With the exception of a cloud backup service, it’s unlikely your files will get backed up right away. This means that there is a window between whenever you start to work on something and when you back it up where something could happen.
If, however, you save that file straight to your Dropbox folder, then you know it’s secure until a more permanent backup solution also has it stored. You get 2GB of space on Dropbox for free which really isn’t very much at all. For $9.99 a month, however, you get a terabyte which is more than enough for most people’s needs. Google One—Google’s recently rebranded Drive—is essentially the exact same service as Dropbox. It’s not the best traditional backup (although it does now offer some backup features) but it’s a great service for keeping your files accessible and a lot more secure than if they’re just sitting on your computer.
The big difference with Google One is the pricing and storage tiers. You get 15GB free, 100GB for $1.99/month, 200GB for $2.99/month, 2TB for $9.99/month, and it goes up from there. If you’re comfortable getting deep into Google’s ecosystem, it’s a better priced option than Dropbox. Acronis True Image is pretty much, an all in one backup solution. You can back files up to local hard drives, network attached storage devices, and Acronis’ own cloud backup service.
For $49.99 you get the app, however, to back up to the cloud, you’ll need to either subscribe to the Advanced plan for $49.99/year or the Premium plan for $99.99/year. Both also come with some extra features like social media backup and phone support. If you’re looking for one app that takes care of everything, then Acronis true image is a good bet.
You can have it take care of your local backups as well as your cloud backups. Wrapping Up Backing up your files is incredibly important if you don’t want to lose them. Lots of people—myself included—have been caught out by a faulty hard drive in the past. As I mentioned at the top of this article, a single local backup really isn’t a strong solution. It’ll protect you against some things, but not against stuff like fire or theft.
Ideally, you should have two or three independent backups. All the backup software for Macs on this list will help you do it.
WhatsApp has become one of the mostly used channels of communication. For that matter, the WhatsApp information may contain important messages and media. The information may however get lost and we may need a backup extractor to extract the information from the backup.
In case that happens, here are top five WhatsApp backup extractors you can use. Top 5 WhatsApp Backup Extractors Software We've Found 1 iMyFone D-Back (iOS 12 Supported) or is one of the best software that helps extract varioues data from your iPhone backup files. Apart from recovering the WhatsApp data, it helps extract more than 22 files types which means that it can extract almost any file type. Pros:. It supports various data type, such as contacts, photos, text messages, WhatsApp messages, Viber messages, Kik messages, notes, voice memos and more. It has a preview option that lets extract data selectively.
It supports data extraction from iTunes and iCloud backup or from iOS device directly. It has a simple and exceptionally responsive user interface.
It displays the name of each person in a group chat. Cons:. It takes some time to scan for WhatsApp data. How to use iMyFone D-Back to extract WhatsApp from iTunes or iCloud backup Extract WhatsApp Messages from iTunes Backup Step 1: To extract WhatsApp messages from iTunes, choose 'Recover from iTunes Backup', then click 'Start' from this tab.
Step 2: You will be able to see all the iTunes backup the program finds on your computer. Choose the one that you want to export WhatsApp chats from and click 'Next'. Select the WhatsApp as the file you need to extract and click 'Scan'. Wait for a moment as it scans. Step 3: The found WhatsApp data will be shown on the interface.
Choose the exact files that you need and click 'Recover'. Select a path and the data will be saved on the selected location. Extract WhatsApp Messages from iCloud Backup Step 1: Select 'Recover from iCloud Backup'and at the 'Recover from iCloud Backup' tab, click 'start'. Step 2: Enter your iCloud account details.
The program will find the files from the backup, select the iCloud backup to recover files from and click 'Next' on the lower right corner. Step 2: Select WhatsApp as the file type that you want to extract from iCloud backup and click 'Scan'. Step 2: The WhatsApp files will be displayed on an interface. Preview and choose the ones you need to extract.
Then click 'Recover'. Choose a place to store your data and wait as the program extracts your data. 2 Tipard iOS Data Recovery Tipard is a great iOS data extractor and it helps extract WhatsApp data from the backup. It works in all versions of window and all versions of Mac OS X. It extracts 19 different types of files including videos, WhatsApp chats and much more.
Pros:. Supports more than 18 file types. It can extract data from iTunes and iCloud. Cons:. The price is very high and most features of the trial version are disabled. It takes too long to scan and extract files. 3 Wondershare Dr.
Fone Wondershare DR. Fone is a software utility which permits the extraction and recovery of data lost through accidental deletion or the data lost through software upgrade. Extracting WhatsApp data is simple with this tool and once you connect it, you can begin by finding the lost files. Apart from the WhatsApp files, it can recover other more than 16 file types. Pros:. It is fast in extracting files. It has self-explanatory user interface.
Cons:. The preview function is poor and it does not all the preview of all found data. It sometimes misses out few lost files.
4 iMobie PhoneRescue iMobie Phone Rescue lets you recover lost data through software upgrade, data corruption, factory resetting and any other form of data loss. The tool can recover any WhatsApp file that you have lost and it offers the same function to other 20 types of files. Pros:. It is lightweight and does not take much space. Supports 20 file types. Has three simple data recovery or extraction modes.
Cons:. It is extremely slow in extracting data. Misses out some lost files during the data recovery. 5 Aiseesoft FoneLab Aiseesoft FoneLab is a data extractor software that runs on iOS devices and is compatible with Mac and Windows. It is also compatible with Android devices such as Samsung, LG, Huawei, HTC, Sharp and Sony among others. The tool has a data recovery mode known as Phone Rescue. The mode helps retrieve deleted or lost WhatsApp files with ease.
It can recover other 18 file types. Pros:. Supports more than 18 file types. It can recover data from iTunes and iCloud. Cons:.
The price is very high and most features of the trial version are disabled. It takes too long to scan and extract files.