An A1 app as far as functionality, always has been. I've been trusting and using it for years. If you're happy to pay for it then I for one would recommend it. *However* I'm giving it just 3 stars because the of the upgrade pricing policy. It's always bugged me, but I've lived with it because it's so good, and I'm so invested in it. But the last few full version upgrades have come out like diarrhoea at $A50 each time. I'm blowed if I'm going to keep that up. So I won't be upgrading to v12 impressive though it sounds. And I'll be thinking very hard about switching. So off to do the research.
Don't know why, but I'm a sucker for utilities -- I'm a utilities junkie -- and I've always liked TechTool, since the days when it was bundled with new Macs. There's no question that it's now the leader in its market space -- Disk Warrior has been in "Sleep" mode for years and Drive Genius I never liked. Thing is, this seems like an odd time for a new release of TTP, on the eve of "Big Sur" going into general distribution. I'm going to wait a good six months for the new OS to "burn in" and give TTP 13 a look then, before plunking down the upgrade dough. Meanwhile TTP 12 should suffice to keep me up and running. -SB
Rubbish over-priced subscription model that disrespects long-time user base. TTP used to charge a reasonable $ for x.0 upgrades with most 0.x revisions v cheap or free. Now it seems that every x.x.1 "upgrade" is USD$50, even if the last x.x.1 "upgrade" was just last week. Greedy greedy greedy and the best way to destroy your user base. I recall when this was a 5-star app - nowadays it barely scrapes a 2.7 from its users - strong message to company - you're on a downward spiral!
as for all the "5 star" reviews here - haha - paid company staff trying to support a over-priced product.
I have been using Tech Tool Pro for a long, long time, and it (along with Onyx, plus other measures I take on my own) has kept all of my Macs running fine. As far as upgrade pricing, it is $29.99 (+ tax for me). Also, even though I just upgraded to V13.0.1 the other day, I am positive that when they release a version that is compatible with Big Sur, an upgrade at that time will be free. So, not sure why others have issues.
So what's new in TechTool Pro 13? From Micromat's product page: - - - *New In Techtool Pro 13* - - - Snapshot Recovery - -> Techtool Pro 13 now includes data recovery options for APFS volumes. Create longer lasting APFS snapshots that can be used to recover accidentally deleted files, even if a backup is unavailable. Create snapshots automatically using the new Snapshot Usage feature in Techtool Protection, and mount and recover from your snapshots using the Snapshot Recovery tool. - - Drive Speed Tool - -> Techtool Pro 13 introduces a new tool to measure disk speed. Drive manufacturers advertise speeds that may not be realistic for real-world use, depending on the connection used, etc. Find out how your drive actually performs using the Drive Speed tool. - - Internal Improvements - -> Techtool Pro 13 continues to improve internally. We continue to update many of the tests and tools to use newer technologies to keep your Mac running smoothly. You may experience some of these improvements in the Battery Check test and in the Techtool Protection preference pane.
I stopped upgrading after I did TechTool Pro 10 *Standard Upgrade - from TTP9. Less than a month later, TTP came out w/ a new upgrade for more money. Never looked back. No Mo $$$ 4 me
With the history of this company one would be very silly to purchase a new version a month or two before a new Mac OS version (Big Sur) is due to be released. It would not be surprising at all for this company to release an update shortly after that will cost more money to get sort of compatibility with Big Sur, and then a bit later to be charged another upgrade fee to then get better compatibility. Good luck.
As others have said, I'm through with MicroMat. I was a user, a couple of versions ago, became frustrated with support and functions that didn't work so, I dropped them. Version 12 arrived and I hoped they had gotten their act together so, I bit again on 06/01/20. Protege never worked but I figured they'd sort it out, with the next MAINTENANCE UPDATE. Now I see Version 13 has been released and MicroMat wants more money from me. Never again!!!!!!!
TechTool Pro 13.x is out…
The slippery slope of subscription apps cloaked as a new version, delivered annually, continues to be a problem…pity, that SoftRAID is not included especially in a world of massive storage.
So here we go again: https://www.micromat.com/store
Version 13 just released at the usual high upgrade price. I have lost count of how many times I have paid for this application. They even lured me into paying for upgrades that didn't work on the newest macOS at the time. And when they updated that months later I had to pay again. And again. Only one star for treatment of all-too-loyal customers.
In response to ignorant reviews of TTP here at MU, I'm posting a 5 star review. What I love about TTP 11 and 12: • It works well with SSDs and APFS volumes. It's the only utility that currently does! • It's the single best hardware checking utility for Mac, no question about it. • It provides two methods for creating bootable systems/volumes for fully testing and repairing any boot volume, HFS+ or APFS, HDD or SSD. My only complaint is how slow it is to create the repair volumes. Take a tea break. • Micromat regularly update TTP to be compatible with the latest macOS and Mac hardware. - - I can no longer use either DiskWarrior or Drive Genius, the two alternatives. I know why and I thank lazy Apple for not providing adequate APFS documentation to developers! However, Micromat nonetheless does work with and repair both SSDs and APFS volumes, and does it well! Micromat point out that their repair solution is not complete, thanks to Apple. But they are the ONLY developers to work out repair solutions anyway. BRAVO! TTP is well worth the cost for all users who want and require the single best testing and repair utility for Mac. Period. Thank you Micromat.
USELESS WITH AN SSD AND WITH APFS.
This used to be a good utility (not great, only good), though DiskWarrior was MUCH better. However, ALL disk utilities are now useless because they cannot do a volume rebuild on an SSD (volume rebuild was the one operation that could really fix a screwed up drive), so THEY ONLY WORK ON HDDs. Also, I’m not aware of any disk utilities that work fully on drives formatted with Apple File System (APFS), and most do not yet work on Catalina. DON’T WASTE YOUR TIME AND MONEY ON THIS DOG.
Has everything I could ask for. Total System and disk care. The upgrade price is not cheap...then again it is not a subscription and software development in the age of SSDs and Catalina is not easy.
An A1 app as far as functionality, always has been. I've been trusting and using it for years. If you're happy to pay for it then I for one would recommend it. *However* I'm giving it just 3 stars because the of the upgrade pricing policy. It's always bugged me, but I've lived with it because it's so good, and I'm so invested in it. But the last few full version upgrades have come out like diarrhoea at $A50 each time. I'm blowed if I'm going to keep that up. So I won't be upgrading to v12 impressive though it sounds. And I'll be thinking very hard about switching. So off to do the research.
Where the hell is uprade for DiskWarrior, by far the best drive maintenance and repair too, which leaves al the others in the dust? Seems the next MaOS will be released before the lazy ass developer gets around to finally releasing a Catalina-compatible version of this great utility..assuming they ever will.
This app rocks! I use an SSD and Catalina, though they say the current edition does not "Totally support Catalina" I use it constantly and it is my #1 standby Drive utility. Vastly better than DriveGenius 5 or the new 6. In Mohave 5 and 6 will report falsely of disk damage and neither of those support Catalina and seem to have no immediate plans to do so. TechTool support treats you like a human and never makes you feel like an idiot or that you are bothering them. Yes file optimization works...you simply have to create am bootable partition use it and TechTool is fully operational. The app even tells you so if you try to do anything with the Startup drive. The Bootable portion is created quickly with no effort on your part. You simply designate where you want the Bootable partition created and the rest is automatic.
Unless they have changed their upgrade policy, this makes no sense to purchase now as there will be an upgrade next month to take advantage of MacOS Catalina and it will have a charge for it.
Just a word of caution for potential new purchasers of TechTool Pro.
While TechTool Pro can do volume rebuilds on APFS formatted volumes and disks, as of version 11.0.4, both File Optimization and Volume Optimization still do NOT work on APFS volumes and disks.
While Apple has long claimed that file optimization has become meaningless in light of modern huge hard drives and fast machines, some Mac users still like to optimize anyway. If you are one of such people, and if you do use APFS, then please be aware of this point before making a purchase.
v11.0.3 still has some minor bugs. The most annoying is when your Preferences chosen are RESET to the DEFAULT without your permission.
In my case, I do NOT want Directory Backup OR Volume Usage OR Trash History left on. Upon Restart it is common for all three of these settings to be checked ON again. I’ll have to dig further to understand why this happens. But my best guess is that these settings are (wrongly) stored in User Cache rather than in a PLIST permissions file. If/when I dump my User Cache appears to be when this bug enacts itself.
Also, there have been reports of problems creating eDrives (a temporary bootable partition for repairing native Mac boot partitions). I still have to check if the bugs have been removed in 11.0.3.
Overall, despite the minor bugs, TTP 11 is impressive. It remains (sadly) the ONLY disk repair utility that can (mostly) repair APFS volumes. • DiskWarrrior still cannot, with no sign of progress. • Drive Genius still cannot, with no sign of progress.
WHY the interminable lack of full support for APFS in any Mac utility??? The blame goes to Apple. Inexplicably, Apple is being lazy, not finished APFS documentation to developers. This annoyingly fits with Apple's recent Mac malaise, now extending to over three years since APFS was announced and its first beta provided. Developers are uniformly fed up with this specific lack of support from Apple.
IOW: Don't blame Micromat or the other repair utility providers. Thank Micromat for striving forward with actual APFS repair support, despite Apple.
I generally do not leave bad reviews as I have had to deal with several bad reviews on Yelp for my business so I get the damage it can do to some companies.
Anyway when I bought TechTool Pro 10 and tried to install it for the first time, I got the message many got when they were trying to use TechTool Pro 10 with a fully updated OS computer...."TechTool Pro 10 (version number) is not fully compatible with your mac OSX (version number)"
I contacted support to ask them if it was normal and was told it was not and that a fix should be out soon. A week later, TechTool Pro 11 came out. I asked the company again when a fix was coming and was now told that I needed to update and pay for Version 11.
Now, let me be clear....I understand a company doesnt have to offer the next version for free....but it seems rather common business sense that if a brand new customer buys a version of your product and is having issues with it, you can give him the next version that came out 5 days after his purchase that by the way does fix the issue at hand.
So, they won't be getting my business again.
I emailed MicroMat asking if I could get the next version and was never emailed back. Nothing.
Another version of TechTool Pro and another upgrade fee. This is version 11. Many will not like this, given all the other upgrade fee's we've paid reccently. But, at long last, TTP is completely compatible with macOS 10.14, Mojave. There are a number of additional features that I've not yet tested, so I cannot give it a full review. Except to say that it repeatedly asks for full disk access, even after you've granted it. If you haven't been going along with the upgrade schedule, this one will cost you more, up to $59 from old versions of ttp. There's a whole schedule of upgrade charges, depending on which version you're using. But if you are using Mojave, and need TechTool Pro, there is little choice at this point. I believe ttp is the first major maintenance utility to be fully compatible with 10.14.
v11.0.2 was released today. I bought in and will post my critique after testing. Sadly, there is still no sign at this time of DiskWarrior or Drive Genius supporting APFS repair.
Contrary to the comment below, Micromat nor any other vendor provides full APFS repair support. Apple has not provided vendors with sufficient technical documentation to provide otherwise. Take note about what Micromat itself says:
""APFS support status with the release of Mojave
It is understandable to conclude that Mojave support and APFS support would mean the same thing. However, the operating system and the file system are, in fact, distinct from one another. While the operating system serves as the 'window' for interacting with drives in many ways, there is no API for dealing with the disk directly.
The current documentation from Apple does not include sufficient information to write a tool to defragment APFS volumes. The extent of the documentation on the subject so far is a feature flag labeled NX_FEATURE_DEFRAG which indicates whether an APFS container supports defragmentation.
If Apple releases additional documentation that provides sufficient information for manipulating the data directly on disk, we will explore whether a defragmentation feature is feasible for *rotational* APFS drives. Defragmentation on Solid State Drives in the traditional sense will not be supported, as organizing data on solid state devices only serves to increase wear, and provides no performance benefit.
Likewise, while the Volume Rebuild can repair many drives with volume structures problems, a full rebuild that reorganizes the volume structures can only be implemented once Apple provides further documentation.""
Now TechTool Pro 11 - EXCELLENT. Always used TTP on my older Macbooks & never regretted it. Currently have a Macbook Pro w/SSD for almost 3 yrs, now running Mojave; never bothered to backup the drive figuring SSD would not fail - didn’t take into account that there might potentially be OTHER sources of file, partition &/or volume structure corruption. Sure enough... ! Ran Disk Utility First Aid preventatively & it detected multiple structure problems. AppleCare support recommended over-the-internet MacOS reinstall but I figured I’d try the new TTP version 11 for $60 (legacy upgrade price) & it fixed what Disk Utility could not. Have not run into ANY difficulties installing it or in using all features on my Macbook Pro running Mojave. PERFECT.
$50 to upgrade from v.9 for only one machine! I've been a loyal customer since Techtool was available on a bootable CD. Paid for every update since then but this new pricing strategy is GREEDY!
TechTool Pro version 11.01 has been available for nearly a week as of this posting today (Feb. 20, 2019) but there's no sign of it here! Its main feature is "Mojave compatibility" which is very welcome. Look for it on the developer's site.
Another paid-for upgrade with version 11? Seems I've got to fork out $30 every 6 months now for useless "new features." Micromat should be ashamed of themselves for misleading customers that way. After version 9, version 9.5 AND 9.6 (yup, that 0.1 addition also cost money!) and 10 I'm passing now on this one.
Just been invited to upgrade to TTP11 - registered owner of TTP9.5 (and have been user/registered since TTP 5) and the 'intermediate' upgrade is AU$81.
Pass.
Not worth it for me - cancerous 'upgrade' policy of USD$20 here and another UDD$20 there for 0.x 'upgrades' that add little functionality. Now expected to pay approx USD$60 for upgrade is beyond a joke.
Product is worth 4 stars but the treatment of customers leaves much to be desired. Bye bye Micromat and your cancerous bleeding approach to your (ex-)loyal customers.
I've been a loyal customer since version 1.0, but no longer. I've found the latest iteration (11.0.1, not 10.x.x) to be unstable, unreliable, and generally useless. It wasn't even worth paying the latest $30 upgrade fee for so-called compatibility with Mojave - this app is too unstable to complete a scan either running from the startup disk, or from the eDrive partition.
Save yourselves the time, the money, and the hassle - keep good backups, learn to run "fsck -fy" from single-user mode, and pick up a few small, cheap, dedicated utilities to monitor SMART status and battery health. If your Mac really has any serious hardware faults, it's not like TTP is going to be able to run or fix them. (And it's not like we can just swap out bad memory modules like in the old days...)
I have been using and promoting TechTool Pro among my friends as an Executive of local Apple User Group in Western Canada. Recently I had to wipe out the internal drive of my Mid 2011 iMac. Some applications and passwords mysteriously disappeared when transferred back from the Clone. Recently updated TechTool Pro 8.0.3 with a Serial 813542229291842 was one of them. I am sure that I recently paid for it, but do not even remember whether this was from MacUpdate or directly. I want to download it again and install for Sierra 10.12.6
Please help me Mark Jaworski latarnik@mac.com
I am getting increasingly frustrated with this company. MacOS Mojave is already at 10.14.2 and we STILL don't have a Mojave-compatible version (sorry, partial compatibility doesn't count). Directory Backup and Trash History are still grayed out and non-functional, which are two of the most important features I need. Hopefully we'll get a fully-compatible Mojave version before Apple releases the next major OS version!
Haha! I just checked: TTP 10.1.2 is NOT compatible with MacOS X 10.14.2! Didn't I tell you? These people, i.e. the developers, ARE thieves. That is the last time I had anything to do with this piece of programming sh.t.
These people are thieves pure and simple. Yes, you may download a TTP new release when a major MacOS X version has arrived, but subsequently with each new update to the current OS version, TTP informs you it is not compatible with the given update. As such, this software is completely useless and the developers are too lazy to keep the programme up to date. How long ago Mojave 10.14.1 update was released? TTP has been unusable since, that is for months. Now we have Mojave update 10.14.2 and new version of TTP is finally available 10.1.2. When Mojave 10.14.3 appears, I guarantee TTP will again say it is incompatible! This software remains incompatible much longer than it is compatible! This is ridiculous. Well, it is no longer even funny because you pay quite a bit for this piece of garbage. Do not bother, just wait for DiskWarrior when it is finally compatible with APFS format.
The question of when TTP will be entirely compatible with macOS 10.14 Mojave continues with v10.1.2. The ongoing problem is that TTP eDrives do not work with Mojave. Micromat has, at this point stated:
"The developers are working on making the eDrive compatible with Mojave. Apple changed some characteristics of bootable volumes, and some of the development tools."
Meanwhile, TTP 10.1.2 does otherwise run on Mojave and is the ONLY Mac utility that thus far can repair and rebuild APFS formatted volumes. Micromat still has work to do providing full Mojave compatibility.
Micromat alienated many users by trying to be first to handle APFS volumes, which required several versions to manage. The multiple upgrades with concurrent fees were confusing, at best. However, taken together, they cost no more than the normal fee for a single upgrade.
The real question is not how much it costs but how much you use or need it. I suspect that some casual users may fall off because of Micromat's confusing upgrade strategy. Anyone who actually needs TechTool Pro will sort it out and such it up. There is only one other utility that comes close to TTP in functionality and that's Drive Genius by Prosoft. It's not as expensive as TTP, but it does not yet support APSF volumes. And it doesn't enable the creation of an external utility disk, as TTP does. On the other hand, I used Drive Genius to initialize a corrupted volume, something that TechTool Pro couldn't do. I also use DiskWarrior, but need TTP to repair a volume on occasion when DW will not do so. Which is to say I use all three apps from time to time, though I use DiskWarrior more often than the rest because it's quick and easy. Still, when I need to drill down on a issue I use TechTool Pro. So I'm rating it high because it handles multiple problems like nothing else out there. Most of those dishing it are mad about the multiple upgrade charges, not about how well it works, which is understandable but not entirely fair.
OMG, upgrades just increased from $20 to $30 from previous versions. I couldn't find any statement about paid upgrades being released on a less frequent basis, so now I will assume that I'll have to pay $60 annually to keep this app current (up from $40)!!!
Well, I was simply unable to test it on OS 10.11, the app crashes at launch no matter what. :-/ I came back here to see if they fixed something but doesn't seem so. Out of curiosity, on their website, I notice the link for "Need an older version of TechTool Pro?" leads you to a 404 page... It's been a while TTP is not really convincing (since v7) and I'm getting usually better results with DiskWarrior.
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v11.0.3 still has some minor bugs. The most annoying is when your Preferences chosen are RESET to the DEFAULT without your permission.
In my case, I do NOT want Directory Backup OR Volume Usage OR Trash History left on. Upon Restart it is common for all three of these settings to be checked ON again. I’ll have to dig further to understand why this happens. But my best guess is that these settings are (wrongly) stored in User Cache rather than in a PLIST permissions file. If/when I dump my User Cache appears to be when this bug enacts itself.
Also, there have been reports of problems creating eDrives (a temporary bootable partition for repairing native Mac boot partitions). I still have to check if the bugs have been removed in 11.0.3.
Overall, despite the minor bugs, TTP 11 is impressive. It remains (sadly) the ONLY disk repair utility that can (mostly) repair APFS volumes.
• DiskWarrrior still cannot, with no sign of progress.
• Drive Genius still cannot, with no sign of progress.
WHY the interminable lack of full support for APFS in any Mac utility??? The blame goes to Apple. Inexplicably, Apple is being lazy, not finished APFS documentation to developers. This annoyingly fits with Apple's recent Mac malaise, now extending to over three years since APFS was announced and its first beta provided. Developers are uniformly fed up with this specific lack of support from Apple.
IOW: Don't blame Micromat or the other repair utility providers. Thank Micromat for striving forward with actual APFS repair support, despite Apple.
""APFS support status with the release of Mojave
It is understandable to conclude that Mojave support and APFS support would mean the same thing. However, the operating system and the file system are, in fact, distinct from one another. While the operating system serves as the 'window' for interacting with drives in many ways, there is no API for dealing with the disk directly.
The current documentation from Apple does not include sufficient information to write a tool to defragment APFS volumes. The extent of the documentation on the subject so far is a feature flag labeled NX_FEATURE_DEFRAG which indicates whether an APFS container supports defragmentation.
If Apple releases additional documentation that provides sufficient information for manipulating the data directly on disk, we will explore whether a defragmentation feature is feasible for *rotational* APFS drives. Defragmentation on Solid State Drives in the traditional sense will not be supported, as organizing data on solid state devices only serves to increase wear, and provides no performance benefit.
Likewise, while the Volume Rebuild can repair many drives with volume structures problems, a full rebuild that reorganizes the volume structures can only be implemented once Apple provides further documentation.""
"The developers are working on making the eDrive compatible with Mojave. Apple changed some characteristics of bootable volumes, and some of the development tools."
Meanwhile, TTP 10.1.2 does otherwise run on Mojave and is the ONLY Mac utility that thus far can repair and rebuild APFS formatted volumes. Micromat still has work to do providing full Mojave compatibility.
I came back here to see if they fixed something but doesn't seem so.
Out of curiosity, on their website, I notice the link for "Need an older version of TechTool Pro?" leads you to a 404 page... It's been a while TTP is not really convincing (since v7) and I'm getting usually better results with DiskWarrior.