If you rely on iCloud but don’t have a true backup of that data, BackiGo is one of the simplest ways to create one.

BackiGo is an iCloud backup app I can recommend for anyone looking for an alternative to Parachute. Parachute is a well-known iCloud backup utility that was recently acquired by a company with a solid reputation, but also a history of price increases and subscription transitions.

Who This Is For

BackiGo is particularly useful if you:

• Store large amounts of data in iCloud Drive or iCloud Photos
• Use Optimize Mac Storage, meaning your Mac does not hold full local copies
• Want an off-Apple backup copy of your iCloud data
• Need to back up iCloud data to a NAS, external drive, or another cloud provider

Why You Need an iCloud Backup

Sometimes Apple’s logic escapes me. Nowhere is that more obvious than in the opaque world of iCloud.

If you don’t have a method for keeping a versioned backup of your iCloud documents and photos, you should set one up sooner rather than later.

The simplest approach looks like this:

1. Use a Mac signed into iCloud.
2. Turn off “Optimize Mac Storage” for both iCloud Drive and Photos.
3. Allow all files to download locally.
4. Let Time Machine back up that Mac.

This works because Time Machine will keep historical versions of those files.

Unfortunately, that approach isn’t practical for everyone. If, like me, you pay for 2TB of iCloud storage but your Mac has a much smaller internal drive that can’t be upgraded, downloading everything locally simply isn’t feasible.

Experienced Mac users already understand the core issue: iCloud is a syncing service, not a backup.

If you overwrite a file, the new version replaces the old one everywhere. If you delete a file, it disappears everywhere. If a file becomes corrupted, that corruption syncs too.

Even with Time Machine running, you still won’t have copies of many files if Optimize Mac Storage is enabled, because those files never existed locally on your Mac.

The core idea is simple: get a second copy of your iCloud data somewhere Apple’s sync engine can’t touch it.

One more thing - you can find multiple stories of people permanently losing access to their iCloud accounts through ID theft, malware and Apple’s own policies.

BackiGo Features

This is where BackiGo comes in. The app lets you create a copy of your iCloud data and store it in a variety of locations:

• External drives (USB or Thunderbolt)
• Other cloud providers with versioned storage, such as Dropbox or Google Drive
• A NAS on your home network
• A shared folder on another computer (including Windows machines)
• An FTP server
• WebDAV support is planned

Some of the features I’ve found useful:

• Universal app that runs on Mac, iPhone, and iPad
• Flexible photo organization; mirror your Apple Photos structure or export into folders by device/year/month (for example AmerpieMBA/2026/04)
• Selective backups; back up documents but skip photos, or back up only specific albums
• Multiple cloud destinations, including Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, pCloud, and Backblaze
• Incremental and full backups
• Scheduled backups based on time, frequency, and backup type
• Local Photos library support for people who use Photos without iCloud
• Live Photo and shared album support
• Built-in photo viewer to visually confirm what’s included in a backup
• Detailed reports of backup and restore history, exportable as HTML or CSV

Recent Updates

Added backup encryption(optional). While iCloud’s Advanced Data Protection (ADP) already encrypts data on Apple’s side, the app now adds client-side encryption, meaning your data is encrypted before it’s written to the backup destination. This helps protect your data even if the storage drive is lost, a cloud service is compromised, or an account gets leaked.

Also added iCloud archive restore support: Restore iCloud Contacts and iCloud Drive documents Search your iCloud documents and restore specific files

Privacy Policy

No data collected.

Developer Website

BackiGo – Complete iCloud Photo backup and restore solution for iOS and Mac

Price

• Free trial (limited to 500 images)
• $14.99 lifetime purchase
• $6.99 annual subscription
• $0.99 monthly subscription

Available on the Mac App Store with Family Sharing enabled.

✉️ Reply by email

I spent the afternoon experimenting with Radial 4, a rapidly evolving pie-menu app from independent developer Gustav Lubker of AppVerge. If you’re not familiar with pie menu apps, they present a circular menu divided into sections (or slices), each representing an action or command. When configured well, they map naturally to muscle memory and can be extremely fast to use.

Other pie-menu apps I've used include:

• Pieoneer (good)
• CirMenu (good)
• PieMenu (limited)
• Kando (FOSS)

Interface

In Radial, pie menus can include the following types of actions:

• Input
• • Keyboard Shortcut
  • Text
  • Clipboard
• Open
• • Open App
  • Open File
  • Open URL
• Scripting
• • Apple Shortcut
  • AppleScript
  • Shell Script
  • Keyboard Maestro
• System
• • Window Management
  • System Control

The only obvious thing missing right now is deep-link support for tools like Raycast and similar command launchers.

Some Use Case Ideas

Categorized Launchers

Radial is much more than an app launcher, but it works well for that role. You can create multiple menus and switch between them once a Radial menu is invoked with a keyboard shortcut or mouse gesture. One practical approach is to build menus around categories of apps you use regularly.

Examples:

• Browsers – Safari, Chrome, Firefox, Dia, Vivaldi, Orion
• Utilities – Emoji Picker, Keka, PastePal, Updatest
• Writing – Drafts, Obsidian, LibreOffice, Dictionary
• Graphics – ImageOptim, Consul, Immich

This kind of grouping works well because the direction of the slice becomes the memory trigger rather than the app name.

Consistent Application Menus

Radial calls menus that are available everywhere global menus. It also supports context-aware menus that appear only in specific apps or groups of apps.

Because Radial includes a template feature, you can create menus that behave consistently across your main working apps. Anything that can be triggered with a keyboard shortcut can live in the menu.

If you place common commands in the same slice position across multiple apps, muscle memory kicks in quickly.

Examples of commands that translate well across apps:

• New – note, document, macro, shortcut, etc. (⌘N)
• Settings – quick access to preferences (⌘,)
• Search / Search and Replace (⌘F and ⌥⌘F)

You can still add app-specific commands; just keep their placement consistent so your muscle memory stays intact. I created Radial menus for Safari, Things, Obsidian, and Drafts using this approach.

Automation Hub

Where Radial really shines is as an automation hub.

Instead of launching apps individually, you can trigger an Apple Shortcut or a Keyboard Maestro macro that launches an entire workspace with a single click. A second action can close the same apps when you’re done.

If you combine this with a window manager like Rectangle or Snaps of Apps, you can go even further and launch apps on specific displays and in specific Spaces with windows already arranged.

Another useful trick is reducing menu-bar clutter. Many utilities can have their core actions exposed through a Radial menu instead of living permanently in the menu bar.

Examples of apps that work well this way:

• CleanShot X
• Shortcuts
• Rectangle
• Keyboard Maestro
• Side Notes

I also adapted my morning checklist into a Radial menu using a mix of actions:

• Opening several daily websites in specific browsers
• Checking new email across three mailboxes
• Launching social media through the apps I actually use
• Opening Sync Folders Pro and Smart Backup to verify my auto-archiving workflows for photos, music, ebooks, and video
• Sending a predefined prompt to ChatGPT that generates my daily report
• Logging into my self-hosted server for routine health checks

Once it’s set up, everything can be accessed from a single menu instead of hunting through menus, booksmarks and other launchers.

Details

Privacy Policy

Radial has a good privacy policy and you can read it at https://radial.appverge.net/privacy.

Radial includes a built-in AI assistant using Meta's llama-3.1-8b-instant hosted on Groq (with a Q, not K). Ideally, future versions will support additional providers.

Radial is developed in Denmark, which means it falls under EU privacy regulations.

Price

Radial offers a seven-day free trial. The full license costs €14.99 and covers five seats, which is fairly generous for a utility in this category.

Website

Radial’s website includes solid documentation and clear explanations of how the system works.

Radial – Everything at Your Cursor

✉️ Reply by email