QRecall for Mac2.2.8.2

Version 2.2.8 (September 22, 2020) is the latest version on their website. Not sure why it hasn't been here.

This is by far the best Mac-only, space-saving, technically sound, reliable backup software out there, hands down. It's a shame that it seemingly receives so little attention in reviews, way less than it deserves. I use it automated and regularly to keep rolling and staged backups of my main work computers (Mac Pro, Mac mini and a MacBook Pro), and it has so far never lost any data, but saved my butt already several times. It is software whose function of restoring accidentally deleted or gotten corrupt data you usually use seldomly, but it has been an economical bargain for me in only those five crusial instances I depended on it in the last 8 years. Unique features I use and that sets it apart from Time Machine and many other solutions: • Machine keys: Use a machine key to store data from several Macs into a single archive. The logic in QRecall ensures that identical data is only stored once(!) in the archive (e.g. fonts, OS files, applications). In fact, my archive of two machines' startup volumes (each having about 1.5 TB of data on them) for a staged backlog of 2 years (30 days each back from now, then bi-weekly, then monthly layers) is only 2.3 TB in total! • automated, scheduled backups, almost not noticeable when working simultaneously on the machine • sophisticated inclusion/exclusion rules • automated compacting and rolling merge of backup layers (points in time) in the background, • excellent, personal support by the developer • extremely high precautions and consistency checking of the valuable data bay way of clever algorithm design • efficient repair routines in case of hardware defects on the archive target media, network interruptions or power outages • minimization of storage data usage by detecting duplicate data blocks and storing only a single instance of them I am depending on this software now for over 8 years (with 3 machine keys purchased), and it has never let me down. Highly recommended!

I run QR on all of my Macs plus recommended it to all of my customers. Never had any problem. It's fast and the deltas are very small. I use it instead of time machine since these backups run seemingly forever and copy huge amounts of data. In addition to QR I run CCC for bootable alternative device and managing local filesystem snapshots as they are possible in APFS. The most important data is saved additionally to the cloud via Arq. This triumvirate is my favourite combination to save my data.

Version 2.1.10 is out

Version 2.0.8 is out since Apr 28, 2017.

This is odd. Version 2 has been available for quite some time, but macupdate states that version 1.2.3 is the latest version.

I tried it and gave up because I found the user interface confusing. What I wanted to do was say "back up my disk, except for the following few folders" and I could find no simple way to do that. When I added something it appeared to immediately start backing it up, with no way to edit anything. It has a feature that supports Time Machine exclusions, but it's not well documented and the forums says the program ignores user-selected Time Machine exclusions. I also tried the 2.0 beta and it seemed the same. I hope I'm just missing something, but non-forum support is apparently nonexistent and I wasn't going to create a forum account for trying out software. Technically it sounds great, but I think the user interface and manual could use some work.

I run QR for over two years now. Only had a problem once that was solved very quickly by the developer. It's the fastest and most advanced backup software I ever used, especially if you backup to remote volumes with small bandwidth. Automation or recovery is a piece of cake.

Finally found an alternative to TimeMachine (which only gives me troubles since Lion/MountainLion). Thanks! It's very fast and does not produce the thousands and thousands of hardlinks like TM, which to my experience isn't such a good idea on a filesystem like HFS+ (caveat: I'm no expert). Verify/Compact functions: very good. The restore GUI is good but takes more time to learn compared to TimeMachine, and it's less polished. Also: no restore directly from programs (lik Mail), but since this didn't always work reliably on my machines with TM it's no big deal for me. I relied on Retrospect for a long time and always wanted to have two different backup systems. Now it's TimeMachine and QRecall (plus SpiderOak for the few extremely important pieces), Retrospect is too complicated for me (single user).

My network comprises a Mac Pro, my wife's Macbook and a Mac Mini which I use as a small server for e-mail etc. all networked through an Airport Extreme base station. I also have an external Firewire drive attached to the mini for backing up all three machines. I have tried many of the reasonably priced backup solutions on offer and have found cause for dissatisfaction with many of them. A week or so ago I came across QRecall, downloaded and installed the latest release version and within 24 hours I had bought a license. I had a few questions which, if the answer was not to be found in the support forums, were quickly, patiently and comprehensively answered by the developer. At James' suggestion I updated to the latest beta and the performance difference was incredible. QRecall has to be the most versatile backup solution for the home/soho user at a bargain price. I run automatic periodic backups on all three machines then periodically overnight when the Macbook and Mac Pro are unlikely to be in use, the Mac Mini runs merge, compact and verify actions on all three backups. The choices available on when and how to backup are phenomenal and QRecall can be fine tuned to your precise requirements. I still use SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner to make a weekly bootable backup but everything else is now handled by QRecall. I am one very satisfied customer.

Top-Class Software, I've been using QRecall for two months and am extremely glad with it. It does everything I asked and scheduled it to do in a wonderfully efficient way -besides, a rarity among backup/sync applications, in a highly stylised way. I am backing up and archiving my writing work on an hourly basis and returning back to see what I've done all along. (Though I haven't tried large-scale things like system backup etc -SuperDuper seems to be reigning there). Once I had to contact the developer for a small clarification and received a quick, detailed and kind response with encouragement for more. All these things seldom come together nowadays. Well, one of the finest of all Mac applications, I believe -in league with such greats as Quicksilver, Pathfinder, Default Folder X, Ulysses and such. Highly recommended.

It's a little soon to offer a complete review and rating, but so far, it's pretty terrific. I'm backing up a boot drive with 83GB and another 10 GB of miscellaneous data from a couple of external drives. It was very intuitive to set up and configure, much more so than Retrospect, despite my long experience using that software. So far, it also appears much easier than Retrospect to modify and to retrieve items from. I haven't yet attempted to retrieve an entire bootable drive, but I'll be surprised if that isn't just as easy. One nitpick: I'd like to see a better, more comprehensive Help file - for example, a search on "add a folder," meaning I wanted to know how to add a folder to the current backup scheme, yielded no clearly useful step by step answers. It's fine for a program to have its own terminology, but backup software, because it's usually configured when people may not be paying the most intense concentration, and restoration - when they may be panicked and not thinking clearly - all need to have clear translations in the glossary/index so that one can look them up (and the procedures associated with them) using BOTH the developer's lingo AND the likely common words inexperienced and upset users might employ from ordinary language and/or from similarly-functioning products. Nonetheless, this is a great beginning and I'm hoping it will make backing up so easy to set up, monitor, and utilize to restore files that far more people will do so. Even the $40 price the developers anticipate once it's out of Beta is very attractive, given that it may save an enormous amount of grief whether for restoration of one critical file, or a whole drive's contents.