Any good offline automatic file backup apps to backup to the same drive, preferably free?

[Oneechan69]

Time Machine can only backup to other drives. I tried Carbon Copy Cloner but I want it to automatically backup files whenever one is changed no matter how much data is changed and without a threshold. The minimum threshold is 10MB which doesn't cut it since I have many small files I edit.

 

[dumastudetto]

Would this work?

View and restore past versions of documents on Mac

On your Mac, you can browse through document versions and go back to an older version.

support.apple.com

 

[Oneechan69]

Would this work?

View and restore past versions of documents on Mac

On your Mac, you can browse through document versions and go back to an older version.

support.apple.com

No I want an app to automatically backup all my files in a specific directory.

 

[dumastudetto]

You're not really backing anything up if you're storing the files on the same drive as current originals.

Something like GoodSync might work for you though. I used it many years ago and it has a ton of configuration options.

 

[Oneechan69]

You're not really backing anything up if you're storing the files on the same drive as current originals.

Something like GoodSync might work for you though. I used it many years ago and it has a ton of configuration options.

If i accidentally delete files in a directory I want to be able to recover them.

 

[dumastudetto]

If i accidentally delete files in a directory I want to be able to recover them.

You can't do that from the Bin?

 

[gilby101]

ChronoSync will scan on file system changes. Try it. I have never used this functionality - my scheduled scans are on a time basis. But it is not free and is a complex piece of software.

 

[Isamilis]

If i accidentally delete files in a directory I want to be able to recover them.

IMO, creating duplicate backup in the same disk is not effective. Using Time Machine you can manually recover one or few files only. If you worried about disk durability, run Time Machine using other disks with smaller capacity. Or you can combine with cloud storage for backup of critical documents/files.

 

[Bigwaff]

No I want an app to automatically backup all my files in a specific directory.

Review and possibly revive this thread

Best Mac File Sync Program?

I was using Sync Mate from 2009-2015 until it stopped working reliably. Then I used Good Synch from 2015 until present until they went to a subscription service. Now, I'm back to using Sync Mate which works, but is on the slow side, and when it syncs it has to check all of the files on both...

forums.macrumors.com

 

[Squirrrrel]

Time Machine can only backup to other drives. I tried Carbon Copy Cloner but I want it to automatically backup files whenever one is changed no matter how much data is changed and without a threshold. The minimum threshold is 10MB which doesn't cut it since I have many small files I edit.

I’m not sure what you mean. Carbon Copy Cloner can do exactly what you want. You can have it automatically make incremental backups of whatever you want, as often as you want, to whatever location you want. You just need to configure the rules for it. I use Time Machine, but I also use CCC to do very specific backup tasks of very specific folders.

 

[cjsuk]

Time Machine can only backup to other drives. I tried Carbon Copy Cloner but I want it to automatically backup files whenever one is changed no matter how much data is changed and without a threshold. The minimum threshold is 10MB which doesn't cut it since I have many small files I edit.

Sounds like you need to use a version control system like git instead of a sync tool.