iBackup Extractor for Mac

iBackup Extractor for Mac allows you to pull and view data from any of your devices on your Mac. This data, stored in backup files you make whenever you update or back up your iPhone or iPad, contains things like messages, notes, calendars, and contacts, and can be stored indefinitely on any device, including backup hard drives; so a tool like this is great for accessing information that will never make it back onto a phone.

When you open the app, you can load any of the backup files on your computer. It automatically detects them and populates a list on the top of the screen. You can then click on any of the data types on the left of the screen to pull up a list of all data in that backup file. So it will show all of your messages, notes, calendar entries, images, etc. Whatever is backed up to your computer is in that file. Considering Mac and iOS offer no way to do this natively, it's a very useful tool, and the interface here is very straightforward. Unfortunately, we ran into a few performance issues, including some hanging and at least two crashes that occurred while loading large data sets like the Calendar from particularly big backup files. Most of the time it worked flawlessly, though.

If you have a lot of backup files or even just one that you can't access anymore because you have moved on with a new iOS device or deleted that data, iBackup Extractor is a useful tool. It allows you to retrieve anything you might have had stored on an iOS device at any time, and it is free to try (with a $24.95 upgrade price for the full version).

Editors' note: This is a review of the trial version of iBackup Extractor for Mac 2.07.