Transcription
I created two previous videos on backing up photos from iCloud photos. Neither was particularly elegant, but hey, friction creates a sense of ownership and intentional curation. And they're free. I admitted at the time that I couldn't find backup solution software to make the process easy. Well, that changed. Parachute backup can backup iCloud Drive and more importantly, iCloud photos. Parachute backup turns an arduous task into a set it and forget it solution. Let's take a closer look.
Parachute backup is valuable for backing up iCloud photos and iCloud Drive. It becomes invaluable when you've enabled optimized Mac storage in Apple photos. And this video will primarily focus on iCloud photos backup in Parachute backup. Lit Motif are the makers of Parachute backup for Mac. They did not sponsor this video and they didn't compensate me in any way. They did not provide editorial guidance, either. This video reflects my own testing and my own opinions of the app. So, let's get back to it.
Let's quickly go through the relationship of optimized storage between iCloud and the Mac. So, in iCloud you have the full resolution version of your photo. And on your computer, you either have a placeholder or one that is optimized for your computer, your iPad, your phone, but it's not the full resolution version. The cool thing that Parachute Backup will do is it will download that full resolution version to your Mac, making it the full resolution photo. At that point, it will back up to your Mac or whatever storage you have connected to it. And once it's completed the backup, Parachute Backup will actually return this to a placeholder file, which leaves your Mac storage still optimized.
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First up, let's take a quick look at the settings panel in Parachute Backup. You'll see that we have the iCloud Drive Backup interface and the iCloud Photos Backup interface. Up here, we actually have uh personal statistics. You also have general settings, like you would expect. Also, if you use shortcuts, you can actually configure shortcuts to be triggered by any one of these events that you see on the screen. Beyond that, let's go ahead, take a look at what we can connect to Parachute Backup, and this is where you configure that. Tooltips are available throughout the interface where they make sense. Here, we enable it. We determine how often we want the backup to go, and whether we want a full or incremental. You want incremental. And this is where you can configure the location, and you'll see that I have mine set on an external drive. Now, you can go ahead and trigger the backup, or you can set a one-time backup with much the same configurations, and you can also click run the backup now right there.
And since I've mentioned that I'm using an external drive on that, let's talk about the hardware. So, before you back up, you really need to consider your storage. You need adequate storage for today and tomorrow. So, if you need help determining how to find the size of your photo collection, it's pretty easy. On your Mac, go to the settings app, and then under your account name, which is also your name, click iCloud, and then click manage. And right here, you can see that the iCloud photos, mine comes in at 225.6 GB. Your mileage will most certainly vary. But basically, your options include having a very large internal storage disk or a large external drive. Or for you advanced users out there, network attached storage is also an option. I personally have a high-speed 2 TB USB drive connected to my Mac desktop, and there's affiliate link down in the description if you find it helpful.
Now, let me show you the results of a backup. Now, this is what it looks like in the destination folder. You'll see that there is iCloud photos, but there's also iCloud Drive. Let's focus on photos, and we'll go over to the photos library. You'll see that it's sorted by years, then months within there. If I expand that out, it'll show the days of the month. Expand that out, and then you'll see that there is a photo there that has the full-size render along with the HEIC version. Now, I could create a video all by itself explaining how Apple handles photos in the background, but just know that the full-size render is the full-resolution version that Apple manages for you in the background, and the other one is just the file that you see on the local device. But, I want you to pay attention to the AAE file and the P-list file. These two files contain information, metadata, about your photo. If the photo has been edited in Apple Photos, it will be recorded in the P-list file. So, see, Parachute Backup gets a complete backup of all the information related to each of your photos.
Now, when it comes to backup modes, full backup means that it's going to take a complete backup of all the photos and put it in the destination location. And the next time it sets to make another backup, it will once again take a full and complete backup and put it in the destination location. That's going to eat up a lot of storage. There's also another mode called mirror, and that's where it will take that full backup, complete backup, and then whatever happens up in iCloud, it will make that happen on the local destination copies as well. So, if you add a photo, it'll add a photo. If you delete a photo, it'll delete the photo. So, you have to really want there to be a mirror because this leaves you vulnerable to accidental deletions. And finally, there's the incremental backup. Initially, it will take a full and complete backup and put that in the destination location, and then whenever you add a photo in iCloud, it will back up to the destination. If you delete a photo, it will not delete it from that incremental moded backup on your destination. So, that keeps you as safe as you can hope to be. And that is why I strongly recommend incremental mode for your backups.
Okay, so you now have your full backup, and then something happens to your photos and you need to restore from your backup. It's really easy. Just open up Apple Photos, and then open up the destination, your backup destination in Finder. Find the photo that's missing and simply drag and drop it into Apple Photos. And then, if you need to add it to any of your albums, go ahead and do that then. Now, if you've ever edited a photo in Apple Photos, you can be confident that Parachute Backup has that photo backed up with your edits. It also includes that photo edited information, like I mentioned before. But, the problem is Apple currently doesn't offer a restore option for this. Light Motif, uh the developer behind Parachute Backup, is actually currently talking with Apple to offer this feature in Apple operating systems. So, while the solution for restoring edited photos might not be perfect yet, Light Motif's future-aware approach is really smart.
Before I was going to be comfortable recommending Parachute Backup, I wanted to verify how it handled edited photos, metadata, and the incremental backups. So, what I did is I created a temporary file. I dropped it in Photos. I edited it in Photos. And then, I started a Parachute Backup. And then, I waited. And then, I checked that it made it into the destination folder, as expected. Then, I went back to Apple Photos and deleted the photo. Then, I emptied the recently deleted folder of that file. So, yeah, it was really deleted. And then, I started a Parachute Backup again, and I waited. Then, I went back to the destination location, and the file was still there, as I expected. Meaning, I am not vulnerable to accidental deletions any longer.
All right. So, Parachute Backup is a comprehensive solution for a complex problem. You can do the same backups yourself for free, but with quite a bit of effort. Parachute Backup offers a solution at a compelling value. At the time of this recording, Parachute Backup for Mac cost $14.99 in US dollars on the Mac App Store. And I want to restate that I Motive did not sponsor this video and I'm not receiving any form of compensation from them. In fact, I paid for my license of Parachute Backup for Mac. Further, I Motive provided no editorial guidance about the content in this video. They only provided clarification to me via email around the limitation for restoring edited photos in Apple Photos. And that's when they shared that they are talking with Apple about that feature. End of disclaimer. So, until next time, have fun, stay safe, and keep learning.