Retrospect for Mac
Key Details of Retrospect
- Backup and recovery, data archiving, and data duplication.
- Last updated on 2/29/2024
- There have been 7 updates
- Virus scan status:
Unscannable (this software program could not be scanned for compliance. Its safety status is unknown, and caution is advised)
Editors' Review
Retrospect for Mac automatically creates backups, not only of your local Mac, but of networked computers as well. The multiplatform product comes with a 45-day trial but is unfortunately outdated and suffers from a few bugs.
Pros
A multitude of backup features: Retrospect for Mac is bursting with backup options. We completed a password-protected backup of 58GB over Wi-Fi from a MacBook Air to an external hard drive connected to a MacBook Pro in a little over two hours.
Email notifications: You can set the software to email you whenever a predefined scenario occurs. The available scenarios are a successful backup, an interruption due to an error, media requests, and server startups and shutdowns.
Sophisticated rules: Similar to Finder's advanced search function, you can set up rules about which types of files and directories should or should not be backed up. We created a few rules, such as excluding all files older than a certain date and including all files of a given format.
Cons
Cumbersome setup: From the long registration form that you're required to pull up to the product key that you need even for the trial version of the software, it takes quite a bit of effort and time until you're able to start configuring your backups.
Buggy backups: We were unsuccessful in backing up a few specified folders while using the software's backup assistant under Mac OS X Yosemite. The application defaulted to backing up our entire hard drive.
Missing tag support: While we were testing the rules the app is able to create, we were disappointed to discover that there is no support for the tagging feature introduced in OS X Mavericks. The software is still using labels, which are completely separate from tags and are available only on machines running OS X Mountain Lion and prior.
Bottom Line
If you're looking for a Time Machine-like app that will let you back up what you want where you want without any hassles, we do not recommend that you use Retrospect for Mac since it takes a lot of effort to set up something that should be very straightforward. The only scenario where we would cautiously recommend the application is if you have a server and several computers that you want backed up to it.
Editors' note: This is a review of the trial version of Retrospect for Mac 11.5.3.103.
