Backup strategies, workflows, and keeping your work safe.
Practical guides on backup, file management, and protecting creative work on Mac. Written by the team behind Tusk, a backup app built for photographers, video editors, and content creators.
July 29, 2026
How to use Collect Files to make an After Effects project self-contained, what it misses (fonts, plugins, missing footage), how auto-save actually works, and a workflow for archiving motion projects with verified backups across drives and cloud.
July 26, 2026
What Ableton's Collect All and Save actually does, where Live keeps its automatic backups, how to recover a project after a crash, and a workflow for keeping verified copies of your Live Sets across drives and cloud.
July 23, 2026
Purchased ebooks, movies, music, and games can disappear when a store shuts down or a license changes. What digital buying actually gets you in 2026, which purchases you can archive, and a Mac workflow for keeping verified copies of the media you own.
July 20, 2026
Uploading 1TB of footage takes days on a typical connection, and most video libraries are far bigger than that. Here's the local-first backup setup that protects multi-terabyte libraries in hours, with real upload-time math and where cloud still fits.
July 17, 2026
The best Mac backup software in 2026 depends on what you're protecting: Time Machine for your Mac itself, Backblaze for offsite, Tusk for files across external drives, Carbon Copy Cloner for scheduled drive backups, Arq for encrypted cloud folders. An honest guide to which tool fits which job.
July 17, 2026
Time Machine is free and automatic. Carbon Copy Cloner gives you more control over what gets backed up and when. Here is when to use each, both, or something else for creative work on Mac.
July 15, 2026
Three ways to always know which external SSD holds which files on a Mac: a manual labeling system, disk cataloging apps like NeoFinder, and backup software that tracks every file per drive, even while the drive sits in a drawer.
July 14, 2026
Carbon Copy Cloner and ChronoSync both run scheduled backup tasks on Mac, but they emphasize different things. Here is an honest comparison for 2026, plus when a third option makes sense.
July 11, 2026
Most "backup Google Drive" guides miss the point. Tusk backs up local folders to Google Drive as a destination, not Drive itself. Here is what that means and how to protect files on Mac in 2026.
July 8, 2026
SuperDuper still makes bootable Mac clones, but development has slowed and Apple Silicon limits what bootable backups can do. Here are the best SuperDuper alternatives depending on what you need.
July 5, 2026
Time Machine shows "no available Time Machine destinations" when it can't see a valid backup drive. Here are the fixes, in order, plus what to use if Time Machine keeps failing.
June 30, 2026
Backblaze B2, Wasabi, and Cloudflare R2 pricing compared for 2026: storage costs, egress fees, minimums, and which S3-compatible provider fits your Mac backup workflow.
June 27, 2026
The best external hard drives and SSDs for Mac backup in 2026, with current pricing, speed ratings, and honest picks for photographers, video editors, and archive storage.
June 25, 2026
Cloud storage and cloud backup are not the same thing. Five real cases where photographers, video editors, and creators lost files because they treated Google Drive, Dropbox, or iCloud as a backup.
June 23, 2026
A practical guide to calculating how much backup storage you need for photo and video work on Mac. Real numbers by resolution, codec, and shoot frequency, plus a simple formula.
June 20, 2026
A practical NAS backup workflow for photographers and video editors on Mac: how to set up Synology or QNAP as your central hub, what RAID does and doesn't protect, and how to pair a NAS with external drives and cloud.
June 19, 2026
The best cloud backup services for Mac in 2026 compared: Backblaze, iDrive, Arq, and more. Pricing, what each one actually backs up, and which fits photographers and video editors.
June 17, 2026
Lightroom's built-in catalog backup only copies to your Mac. Here's how to back up your Lightroom catalog properly on Mac: where to store it, how often, and how to protect your RAW files alongside it.
May 27, 2026
A practical guide to the best Mac backup software for video editors and photographers in 2026. What each tool actually handles, what it doesn't, and which combination works for the full creative workflow from SD card to long-term archive.
May 23, 2026
Time Machine works for whole-Mac recovery but leaves real gaps for photographers and video editors: no external drive tracking, no per-file backup status, and no way to know what's safe to delete before you do it. Here are the best alternatives.
May 21, 2026
Storage prices have roughly doubled since 2024 due to AI data center demand. Here's what hard drives, SSDs, and cloud storage actually cost right now, how they compare over five years, and which makes sense for your backup setup.
May 19, 2026
OffShoot, ShotPut Pro, Silverstack, and Tusk compared: advantages, disadvantages, and pricing ranging from €799/year subscriptions to a $79 lifetime license.
May 12, 2026
How to back up footage, project files, and edits across a multi-day shoot on Mac. A practical backup workflow for freelance filmmakers, from SD card ingest to wrapping a project safely.
May 10, 2026
A practical backup workflow for photographers on Mac: how to protect your RAW imports, editing catalog, and final exports, when it's safe to reformat a card, and how to find a shoot months later.
May 10, 2026
System Data eating 100GB+ of your Mac? How to clear it with a free open-source tool, and how photographers and video editors keep footage off their Mac without losing a single file.
May 10, 2026
One read of the card, simultaneous verified copies on every drive: how to offload and back up an SD card to multiple drives at once on Mac, with checksum verification before you reformat.
May 6, 2026
Manual backups lead to errors and missing data. Here's how to set up automatic project folder backup on Mac so every file change is covered without you having to think about it.
May 2, 2026
The 3-2-1 backup rule is standard advice for photographers and videographers but most people set it up wrong. Here's how to do it properly on Mac, automatically and with verified transfers.
May 1, 2026
Shotput Pro costs $169 for a perpetual license and generates PDF transfer reports after every offload. Here are the best alternatives depending on whether those reports are actually part of your deliverables.
April 30, 2026
Carbon Copy Cloner is a capable scheduled backup tool for Mac, but it's not built for project-level backup or creative workflows. Here are the best alternatives depending on what you actually need.
April 28, 2026
ChronoSync is a capable sync tool, but it's built around scheduled tasks and folder rules rather than projects or creative workflows. Here are the best alternatives depending on what you actually need.
April 27, 2026
OffShoot's speed, ShotPut Pro's PDF reports, Silverstack's cascade copies: compared with 2026 prices for each, based on input from working photographers and DITs.