Parachute Backup - Specially Designed for iCloud and Photos

The difference between a backup service and a syncing service is subtle but important. iCloud keeps the same version of your documents and photos in the cloud and on each of your Mac and iOS devices depending on your settings. That's great until something goes wrong. If you delete a photo on your phone or a file gets corrupted, that change syncs everywhere. The damage spreads instantly because sync’s job is to mirror whatever state your device is in, good or bad.

A true backup service works the opposite way. It freezes copies of your data at different points in time and stores them safely elsewhere. If you delete a photo by accident or a file becomes corrupted, the backup stays untouched. You can roll back to yesterday, last week, or last month. That’s the whole point: preservation, not mirroring.

This is why iCloud isn’t a backup for your photos or files. It’s convenient for keeping devices in sync, but it won’t protect you from accidental deletions, corruption, or a bad software update. Backup keeps history; sync copies the present. The distinction shapes whether your data survives mistakes or vanishes with them.

Additionally, as recent news shows, administrative issues with an iCloud account can cut off your access with no warning and limited recourse. The best recourse is a regular backup of your data. Just using Time Machine won't accomplish this. Time Machine backs up what's on your hard drive only. If you've selected the option on your Mac to upload to the cloud to save disk space, you have little control over exactly where your files exist at any given moment. It gets confusing.

The Solution is Parachute Backup

The solution is available in the Mac App Store for just $4.99. Parachute Backup, an app by independent developer Eric Mann, is a set-it-and-forget utility that performs true incremented backups to your own storage device or to another cloud provider. If you have a lot of data or a slow connection, the initial backup can be slow. After that, unless you've made huge data additions to iCloud, the backups are pretty speedy. If you prefer occasional manual backups instead of having the app run in the background on a schedule, that is also an option.

Things to Like

• The security of having a true backup you control
• Inexpensive, one-time purchase, no subscription, no telemetry, no bloat
• Intuitive, uncomplicated interface
• Flexible backup destination

What Could Be Improved

• Initial backup speed
• Implementing a one-click restore process. The current method is manual only.
• Edge cases for some larger photo libraries, custom metadata, and shared albums

More Information

• Backs up original and edited versions of photos
• The app never deletes anything from iCloud. It only has read-only access.
• Provides notification of any file corruption on iCloud and does not back up the file.
• Provides backups of shared photo albums
• Backs up to NAS, SFTP, and WebDAV
• Option to include non-iCloud folders in your backup
• Will back up your photo library from local storage if you do not use iCloud

One last tip - You can find great deals on hard drives at places like Disk Deal. Buy a large, refurbished 3.5-inch internal drive with a warranty and get a case for it that offers Thunderbolt speed. When you set up the drive, create two partitions with Disk Utility. Use one of them for your Time Machine backups and the other for Parachute Backup.