Carbon Copy Cloner 6

Backup and disk copying utility

- Howard Oakley

£29.45 FROM Bombich Software Inc, bombich.com NEEDS macOS 10.15 or later

When Apple killed off its Time Capsule devices, backing Macs up fell into a void. Apple’s own Time Machine languished in Catalina, and competitors such as Carbon Copy Cloner (CCC) stood up. With Big Sur, the game has changed again: Apple decided Time Machine would at last back up to APFS volumes, and it does so excellently, but making copies of the new sealed System volume wasn’t going to be useful – or even possible until recently – any more.

Carbon Copy Cloner version 6 is Mike Bombich’s riposte: near-infinite flexibility against Time Machine’s rigid hourly schedule; navigators, audit and information before, during and after any backup; and an overhauled interface to ensure its wealth of features doesn’t overwhelm. From its original goal of cloning disks, CCC has become a fully-fledged backup system.

CCC now not only backs up by schedule, but can do so when your Mac first connects to the backup disk, ideal for laptop users, or whenever the source files change. Setting up this automation is extremely simple, and when you think it’s right, you can preview the task to see what changes will be made on the backup store.