Backspark Download

Backspark

Backup for your Mac

Backs up your Mac. Then gets out of the way.

Encrypted on your Mac, with a key only you hold. It skips what can be rebuilt, stops when you ask, and costs $99 a year.

Download for Mac Free for 15 days, up to 50 GB

Needs macOS 15 or later and Apple silicon. Move it to Applications and open it from there.

The Backspark panel, open from the menu bar. It says Protected, last backup 12 minutes ago, with Pause, Back up now, Restore, Activity, Skipped and This Mac.
137 MB
Memory at its peak
178 to 307 MB
Kept on disk to track it all
24 to 48 s
To look through everything, with nothing changed
12 ms
From pause to stopped

Measured on 2.3 million real files and 407 GB, on one busy Mac, with nothing uploaded. How we measured

On that same Mac, a well-known backup app used 12.9 GB of memory.

It was tracking 25 million files. It kept 52 GB on the disk just to keep track of them, and nothing in the app showed where that went.

So we built the opposite and ran it on the same Mac. It read 407 GB across 2.3 million files and encrypted the 257 GB it would have sent in about 6 minutes, with nothing uploaded. Here are both, drawn to scale.

Memory at its peakOne dot is 10 MB

Backspark, on 2.3 million real files137 MB

Backspark, on 5 million generated files296 MB

A well-known backup app, tracking 25 million files12.9 GB

Kept on disk to keep trackOne dot is 10 MB

Backspark, on 2.3 million real files178 to 307 MB

Backspark, on 5 million generated files390 MB

A well-known backup app, tracking 25 million files52 GB

This isn't like for like yet. The other app was backing up a whole Mac, uploads included, and its numbers are read from its own logs and files. Backspark's are from three project folders on that Mac, and from a generated tree on an older build, with nothing uploaded. Its memory is resident size. Our 137 MB is footprint, the number Activity Monitor shows. All the numbers

And it shows you where every megabyte went.

Everything Backspark keeps on your Mac is listed by name, with its size and what you can clear.

The This Mac screen, listing everything Backspark keeps on disk by name, with the size of each.
These are the app's own screens, with sample files.

Most of the time, it does nothing.

macOS tells it what changed, so it doesn't go looking. It looks through everything when it starts, at least once a week, and when macOS loses track. For those 2.3 million files that took 48 seconds at worst.

The other app's check for changes typically took 30 minutes a pass, and most passes uploaded nothing.

One look for changesOne dot is 30 seconds

Backspark, everything, at worst48 s

A well-known backup app, typically30 min

After its first backup we watched Backspark for 70 minutes. Its CPU sat at 0.1% of one core at the median, and 2.7% on average.

Pause means pause.

Backing up 18,204,663,120 bytes sent

Go ahead, it's a demo.

The counter above is made up. The stop isn't. In a test, a real backup to a local folder stopped reading and writing within 12 ms of being told, 30 times out of 30.

In the two cancelled passes in the other app's logs, it stopped only at its first checkpoint, 22 and 28 minutes in.

It skips what you can rebuild.

Most of those 25 million files were never worth saving. They were node_modules, build output and caches, all of which come back with one command. Backspark leaves them out, and tells you what it left out and how much.

One of our project foldersOne dot is 10 MB

Selected to back up, of 3.78 GB173 MB

It skips target/ beside a Cargo.toml, not a folder of photos that happens to share the name. A .env at the top of a build folder keeps that folder. Ask why anything was skipped and it tells you.

The Skipped screen, listing what was left out, such as AI models and JavaScript dependencies, with the size of each.
What it left out and how much, with a way to back it up anyway.

Only you can read it. That includes us.

Your files are encrypted on your Mac before they leave. Your key is 24 words, made on your Mac, and they never leave it. There's no password to guess, and no restore that sends your key to us.

We can't read your files. We can't reset your words. We never had a copy.

The setup screen showing 24 numbered words, under the heading These 24 words are your key. The encryption screen, saying End-to-end encryption is on, with the key fingerprint and when the backup was last verified.
The setup screen, with made-up words. Yours are generated on your Mac. Encryption can't be turned off, and the app says so.

No outside firm has audited Backspark yet. Until one has, treat these claims as ours. How it works

Getting a file back takes a search.

Find a file and pick the version you want. Activity says what was saved and when, in plain words.

The Restore screen, listing six saved versions of one file. The Activity screen, listing recent backups and what each one saved.

It tests your backup every week by decrypting part of it.

$99 a year.

Everything on your Mac's own disk, no limit. That's the whole bill, for one Mac. Nothing is metered, and restores are included. You don't pick a storage provider, or think about one. The first 15 days are free, for up to 50 GB.

Worth knowing

Get it

Download Backspark for Mac Free for 15 days, then $99 a year

It needs macOS 15 or later and a Mac with Apple silicon. Open the download, move Backspark to your Applications folder, and open it from there.

It's new. It's been tested on a handful of Macs, so keep whatever backup you have now until this one has earned its place.