Expert rating
Benefits
- Good prices, 30-day demo, educational and non-profit discounts
- Excellent performance and customization options
- Nice range of backup and scheduling options
Disadvantages
- It was difficult to locate the program to grant full disk access
- Lack of network and cloud-based options
- Lack of tutorial videos
Our Verdict
Get Backup Pro is excellent for the casual user. The software is well priced, with a decent 30-day demo. There is an excellent selection of tools and customization options as well as a nice range of options.
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There's no shortage of good backup software for Macs, and while Apple's Time Machine is free, comes with every Mac, and gets its fair share of attention, there are some great alternatives for customizable backups. Among these is Get Backup Pro from BeLight Software, which has been in constant development for years but has still gathered a fairly considerable fan base among its users.
The software (version 3.7.3 at the time of this review) is available as a free 30-day demo and costs $29.99 for a single license, $49.99 for a family license covering up to five Macs (or $14.99 as upgrade price). previous versions). Get Backup Pro 3 is also available with a 30% academic discount for educational and non-profit outfits. The software is also available through MacPaw's SetApp subscription service, which costs between $9.99 and $14.99 per month depending on the subscription level chosen.
As usual with Mac utility software, Get Backup Pro 3 is easy to download, install into the Applications folder, and run. However, this became tricky when the program requested full disk access to allow it to work with all files on the hard drive. While a helpful tutorial window showed how to grant access from the Privacy & Security tab, the program didn't appear so we had to click the “+” icon and browse your Applications folder for it. locate and assign access. Once this obstacle was overcome, the program granted access to the home screen as well as the basic modules (Backup, Archive, Clone and Synchronization).
Foundry
The modules themselves are easy to use, and a good help menu lets you easily search for specific items and learn what they are and how they work. Testing went well and Get Backup Pro 3 is fast, performant, runs great under macOS Sequoia, and works well in the foreground and background.
A convenient user interface keeps things simple, scheduling full backups, cloning, and incremental backups works like a charm, and a range of customization options allow you to choose specific files and folders and add application data to the backup/cloning process. It's there, and while it takes some getting used to, the impressive level of customization makes setting up tasks a breeze, while an excellent recovery system puts data where it needs to be without fail.
Foundry
For users seeking privacy, the software can add 128-bit, 256-bit, Blowfish, Triple DES encryption, or password protection to archive files you create, and a quick response from tech support indicated that there was someone on the other end of the line. ready to help. Quick access to the system logs shows exactly what's happening on the back end, and it was nice to be able to pull that up on the fly.
There's some room for improvement, but aside from the issue of having to manually locate the Get Backup 3 Pro installer app to grant it full access, it's mostly nominal, if not cosmetic. The program offers a good progress bar for tracking the amount of task completed, but an elapsed time counter or estimated time remaining counter (or at least the option to display them) would be a good idea.
While the manual is helpful, it seems like BeLight is missing an opportunity by not linking to or creating its own helpful tutorial videos, and there isn't much in the way of user-created tutorial videos. users on YouTube that could help learn the program even easier.
Finally, Get Backup Pro is focused on local drives and external volumes, with no real network or cloud tools, and this could be available in a future release, but could also limit the software to more casual users.
Should you buy Get Backup Pro?
Get Backup Pro may not have all the cloud and network tools a network administrator might need, but it's excellent for the casual user and home market, and that's arguably what BeLight has been looking for and won. The software is well priced, the option of a 30-day demo gives you time to play with it, and the licensing is flexible enough that a single purchased license covers both my Mac Studio desktop and my MacBook Pro laptop.
Yes, there is some trial and error to using it, and some video tutorials would be very helpful, but there is still a great selection of tools and customization options. It was fun to play and presents a nice range of options beyond what Apple's free Time Machine utility offers. It may not be for everyone, but there's something excellent here and it's worth a look.
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