BackityMac, Easy BackUp

Backing up is a preemptive process. After all, you never know when disaster will strike so you need to be prepared for it each and every day. A decent incremental back-up program and a healthy dose of paranoia are definitely assets here. However, there is another kind of situation, when you know exactly the moment you need a backup. Like, for example, when you decide to kill your system partition to install the latest version of OS X, or simply because your system needs a fresh start. In these cases, there is no need for preemptive backups. However, unless you are willing to let things like your mailboxes, calendar, contacts and more fly out the window, you are going to need another specialized kind of backup. Most backup applications are designed to backup any and all files, regardless of where they are, and keep multiple instances of the file as a buffer against accidents, but you don't want that. What you need is something like BackityMac.

What it does BackityMac is a backup and maintenance utility, with a twist. Unlike other similar programs, BackityMac only backs up specific information, such as your keychain, preferences, mailboxes, iTunes and iPhoto libraries. This makes it the perfect tool to carry over very specific information from one install of OS X to another. Whether you are reinstalling the system, or simply want to make another computer feel just like home, BackityMac makes it very easy.

Backup Backing up your information using BackityMac could not be simpler. Once you start the program, simply select what you want to be backed up. The information is grouped under categories and is easily selected using checkboxes, but offers no customization options. This is not an issue if you are making a backup because you intend to reinstall the system? if you want to go into details about what preferences or contacts to save, just go in and delete the ones you don't need as they will get trashed anyway. However, if you want a fast and easy way to move across some of your information to another computer, you don't have this luxury, but you can always go in and delete it after the information is copied on the target computer. The result of the backup is a disk image that can be encrypted for higher security.

Restoring backups is a simple matter. You can either do it manually, since you basically have a disk image with all the files, or you can do it using the Restore feature. When you use Restore, you will be asked to choose the backup disk image, after which you can choose exactly what you want to restore. The program will automatically scan all of the items in the image and update the interface with the appropriate checkboxes. Should you not want to restore everything, just uncheck the items that are not needed. For further refinement of the backup process, you can just drag and drop any file from the image to its appropriate location and be done with it.

Maintenance BackityMac doesn't stop at backups; it also gives you the standard maintenance options. These include repairing permissions, cron jobs, Spotlight reindexing and all the other run of the mill features that you can find in just about any maintenance application. While not exceptional in any way, these options are there, and they are free. If you don't need them, you can simply never use them since they are on a separate tab and well out of the way.

Other options While not part of the main back-up and restore functionality of the program, BackityMac does have some nice extras.

The first of these is called BackPlodder, and gives you the ability to recover after a loss of an iTunes library by letting you recover the songs on your iPod. Loosing an extensive library and having no backups can be a nasty experience. Fortunately, with BackityMac you can get all those songs and videos back and even have them nicely placed in your iTunes library. This feature however, will not get you back your photos as these are not supported.

The second is the ability to burn the backups to optical media such as CDs and DVDs. This will burn the archive and split it, in case it is too big so that it can fit. The developer warns against mixing media, which is a rather dodgy limitation, and also mentions that sometimes burning will start with the second segment and will end with the first.

Stability As simple as BackityMac may be to use at a first glance, it stops short of being truly reliable. It gave off AppleScript errors even during the simplest of processes such as backing up my preferences. It also gave errors while restoring said preferences. Similarly, many users have reported that the program has huge difficulties with creating backups bigger than 20GB.

These errors are not consistent. It can do the same job several times and not experience any errors. This fickleness cuts down tremendously on the usefulness of the program. As fast and simple as it might be to use, you could potentially end up wasting time simply because it crashed during the process. From some of the errors, it recovers without problem; however, it also freezes after other errors, and your only option is to force quit it.

The Good

Very good for fast and efficient home folder backup, and for specific information. It also has some nice extras.

The Bad

Not the most reliable of programs, gives errors randomly; sometimes even on the simplest of tasks.

The Truth

BackityMac has the potential to be a great application, but fails mainly because of the stability issues. The quick, targeted backups are very, very nice, but not when you have to repeat the process several times because it keeps getting errors.

Here are some screenshots, click to enlarge: