Tusk is a Mac app that automatically backs up your project folders to multiple locations and tracks where every file lives — even when your drives aren't connected.
Time Machine is free and already on your Mac. So why does every "best backup" list also push Backblaze, Tusk, Carbon Copy Cloner, and a dozen others?
Because they don't do the same job. One gets your Mac running again after a dead drive. One keeps a copy offsite when your apartment floods. One tracks files sitting on drives you haven't plugged in in months. Nobody wins the category outright. You pick the combination that works best for you.
The short version: if everything fits on your Mac's internal drive, Time Machine plus a cloud layer covers you. The moment your files spill onto external drives, the picture changes, and that's where most guides go quiet.
TL;DR: Time Machine (free) as the baseline for your Mac itself. Backblaze ($99/year) as the hands-off offsite copy. Tusk ($79 one-time) watches your project folders, backs up every change automatically, and keeps tracking those files even when the drives are unplugged. Carbon Copy Cloner ($49.99 one-time) for scheduled backups of specific drives and folders.
Which Backup Software Do You Actually Need?
Answer one question first: where do your files live?
If the answer is "on my Mac," you need two things: a local backup (Time Machine, or a scheduled tool like CCC) and an offsite copy (cloud backup). That's the classic 3-2-1 setup: three copies, two different media, one offsite. The 3-2-1 guide walks through it.
If the answer includes "on a few external drives," you have a third problem that neither Time Machine nor cloud backup solves: knowing what's on those drives, whether it's backed up anywhere else, and which drive to grab when you need a file from last year. That problem has its own tool category, covered below.
If you're specifically looking for cloud backup, the best cloud backup for Mac guide compares those in depth. For picking the drive itself, see the external drives guide. This article is about which software does which job.
Time Machine (Free, Built In)
Time Machine is the right starting point for every Mac. Per Apple's documentation, it makes hourly backups for the past 24 hours, daily backups for the past month, and weekly backups for older months, then deletes the oldest when the backup disk fills up. Restoring a deleted file or migrating to a new Mac is straightforward. It's free and already installed. Turn it on regardless of what else you use.
Its limits are real, though. It doesn't back up external drives by default (you can add them under Options). It has no cloud destination, so it can't be your offsite copy. And integrity checking is mostly a manual step: since OS X 10.11, Time Machine records checksums on files it backs up, and you can verify them with tmutil verifychecksums in Terminal; for network destinations (Time Capsule / NAS), Option-click the Time Machine menu and choose Verify Backups. If Time Machine's limits are what brought you here, the Time Machine alternatives guide covers the options in detail.
Best for: the baseline local backup of your Mac itself. Free, automatic, good enough as one layer. Not sufficient alone.
Backblaze Personal Backup ($99/Year)
Backblaze Computer Backup backs up your Mac and connected external drives to the cloud, continuously, with unlimited storage for a flat $99/year per computer (monthly and two-year plans also exist). Setup is minimal, which is why it works as an offsite layer: once it's running, the copy happens whether you think about it or not.
Two practical limits. On the standard plan, external drives must reconnect at least every 30 days or Backblaze treats their data as deleted and removes the cloud copy (Extended Version History lengthens retention). And restoring terabytes over home internet is slow; Backblaze also offers a mailed USB drive restore (refundable deposit if you return the drive).
Best for: the offsite layer of a 3-2-1 setup. The backup you never have to remember.
Tusk ($79 One-Time)
Tusk covers the job the other tools mostly skip: files that live across external drives and cloud storage rather than on your Mac.
It thinks in projects, not disks. Point it at a project folder and it backs up every file to the destinations you choose, external drives, S3, Google Drive, or Dropbox, verifying each copy with a BLAKE3 checksum. Then it keeps tracking: every file's status on every destination, including drives that are sitting unplugged on a shelf. You can see that a project from last year lives on the drive labeled Archive_2024 and in your S3 bucket without plugging either one in.
Because it knows what's verified where, it can also tell you what's safe to delete. Before removing local copies to free up space, Tusk checks that every file exists on every backup destination and refuses if anything's missing. And it watches your project folders, so new and changed files get backed up automatically.
What Tusk doesn't do: whole-Mac system backup (use Time Machine or CCC alongside it) and whole-Mac cloud backup (use Backblaze alongside it). It's the layer for your working files, not a system-recovery tool.
Pricing is $79 one-time, or $49 during the current launch offer, with a 14-day free trial that requires no credit card. If you're a video editor or photographer, there's a dedicated guide for the creative workflow.
Best for: anyone whose files have outgrown their Mac: multiple external drives, cloud buckets, and the recurring question of "is this actually backed up anywhere?"
Carbon Copy Cloner ($49.99 One-Time)
Carbon Copy Cloner ($49.99 household license) runs backup tasks you define: pick a source (internal drive, external drive, or specific folders), pick a destination, set a schedule. Incremental updates copy only what changed. SafetyNet keeps earlier versions of files you delete or overwrite on the destination. Trigger-on-connect is useful too: plug in the destination drive and the backup runs automatically. Checksum verification is available but optional (postflight re-verify, and Backup Health Check / "Find and replace corrupted files").
What CCC used to be famous for (bootable clones you could restart from) is no longer the recommended product. Apple restricted system cloning on modern macOS, and Bombich treats bootable copies as a legacy, best-effort path. Their recommended recovery is a standard CCC backup, then reinstall macOS and use Migration Assistant. That still works. It just isn't "plug in and boot, keep working" anymore.
What it doesn't have: built-in cloud destinations, per-file backup status across multiple locations, or any memory of what's on a drive once it's unplugged.
Best for: scheduled, controlled backups of specific drives and folders that Time Machine handles poorly, especially external project drives.
Arq Backup ($49.99 One-Time, Plus Storage)
Arq 7 is $49.99 per computer for the app (price scheduled to rise to $59.99 on September 1, 2026). The license keeps the app you bought; the first year of updates is included, then further updates are a separate fee. Storage is yours: Backblaze B2, AWS S3, Wasabi, Google Drive, and others, billed by that provider. Arq encrypts backups end-to-end with a key you control, and keeps version history so you can restore an older copy of a file.
The tradeoff is that you manage it: pick folders, pick a storage provider, pay storage costs separately. For large media libraries that gets expensive; for documents and smaller project folders where encryption and versions matter, it fits well.
Best for: encrypted, versioned cloud backup of specific important folders, especially when privacy matters.
Side by Side
| Time Machine | Backblaze | Tusk | CCC | Arq | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Whole-Mac backup | Yes | Yes (cloud) | Projects only | Yes (standard) | Folders only |
| External drive backup | Opt-in | Yes* | Yes | Yes | Yes (as source) |
| Cloud destination | No | Yes | Yes (S3, GDrive, Dropbox) | No | Yes |
| Version history | Yes | Yes** | No | SafetyNet / snapshots | Yes |
| Checksum verification | Manual*** | Upload integrity | Yes (BLAKE3, every transfer) | Optional | Yes |
| Tracks unplugged drives | No | No | Yes | No | No |
| Safe-delete check | No | No | Yes | No | No |
| Price | Free | $99/year | $79 one-time | $49.99 one-time | $49.99 + storage |
*Backblaze standard plan: reconnect external drives at least every 30 days or the cloud copy is removed; Extended Version History changes retention.
**Backblaze default version history is 30 days; longer retention is a paid or opt-in upgrade.
***Time Machine records checksums on backed-up files (OS X 10.11+). Verify with tmutil verifychecksums, or Verify Backups for network destinations.
What Should You Pick?
For a Mac with everything on the internal drive: Time Machine plus Backblaze. Free plus $99/year, fully automatic, covers loss, theft, and disk failure.
If your files live across external drives, whether that's photo archives, video projects, music sessions, or years of accumulated work, add Tusk as the layer that tracks and verifies all of it. The other tools back up what they can see; Tusk is the one that remembers what's where after the drives are unplugged.
Add Carbon Copy Cloner if you need scheduled backups of specific external drives or folders that Time Machine skips. Add Arq if specific folders need encryption and version history.
FAQ
It depends on the job. Time Machine (free, built in) is the baseline for backing up your Mac itself. Backblaze ($99/year per computer) is the simplest offsite cloud copy. Tusk ($79 one-time) watches project folders, backs up every change, and tracks files across external drives and cloud even when drives are unplugged. Carbon Copy Cloner ($49.99 one-time) runs scheduled backups of specific drives and folders, with recovery through Migration Assistant rather than a bootable clone. Arq ($49.99 for the app, plus your own storage) does encrypted, versioned cloud backup of chosen folders. Most Macs are well protected by Time Machine plus one cloud layer; add the others based on where your files live.
No. Time Machine is a good first layer, but it's a single local copy: a fire, theft, or a corrupted backup takes out your Mac and the backup together. It also skips external drives unless you add them under Options. The standard fix is the 3-2-1 rule: keep Time Machine, add a cloud backup like Backblaze for the offsite copy, and if you have files on external drives, add a tool that actually covers those.
Time Machine, and it isn't close. It's built into macOS, runs automatically, and keeps hourly, daily, and weekly versions of your internal drive. Its gaps are external drives and offsite copies rather than quality. Beyond Time Machine, free options mean manual copying in Finder (no verification) or rsync in the terminal (verified transfers, but you're scripting everything yourself). Every tool that automates verified backup with an interface is paid.
Yes, if the files matter. They protect against different failures: Time Machine covers accidental deletion and drive failure with fast local restores, while cloud backup covers fire, theft, and anything that destroys your Mac and the local backup together. This is the 3-2-1 principle: three copies, two types of storage, one offsite. Time Machine plus Backblaze is the simplest version of it, roughly $99/year total.
Time Machine skips external drives unless you add them under Options, so many people need a dedicated approach. Tusk backs up project folders from external drives to other drives and cloud with BLAKE3 checksum verification on every transfer, and keeps tracking what's on each drive even when it's unplugged. Backblaze includes connected external drives in its cloud backup; on the standard plan each drive should reconnect within 30 days. Carbon Copy Cloner can back up one drive to another on a schedule.