Trust
How Arkeep checks your backups.
Arkeep tells you whether a file is safe on your drives, so it has to be right. Here’s how it works, what it does to your files (nothing), and where your data stays.
Tested on a real archive
Before launch, Arkeep was tested on 1.3 million files across 8 archive drives: photos, video, audio and project files built up over years, the same mess most of us have.
Every copy is read back and checked
When Arkeep copies files to your drives, it works out a checksum of each file’s contents as it reads it from the card. Then it reads the copy back from each drive and works out the checksum again. A file only counts as backed up when every copy matches the original, byte for byte.
If you’d rather have speed, you can turn on Fast copy, which skips reading back. Those copies are labeled “copied, not verified” and never count as backed up.
Why matching by name isn’t enough
Many tools decide a file is backed up when a file with the same name is already on the drive. That can be wrong in two common ways:
- Cameras and recorders reuse names. After file 9999, most cameras start again at 0001. Two cards from the same camera can hold two different photos both called DSC00001.ARW.
- Same size isn’t the same file. Uncompressed RAW files from one camera are often exactly the same size, down to the byte.
So Arkeep checks the name, the exact size, the capture date and a fingerprint made from the file’s contents. If any of them differ, it says “same name, different file” and treats it as not backed up. Until a drive’s fingerprints are ready, it tells you which files were matched without one.
Arkeep never deletes, moves or changes your files
Arkeep only reads your cards. It never deletes, moves, renames or formats anything on them. Clearing a card is always up to you.
On your archive drives, Arkeep only adds the new copies you ask for. It never deletes, moves or changes a file that’s already there.
Your archive stays on your devices
The list of everything on your drives, and your history of checks and copies, stays on your Mac. When the iPhone app is paired, your history syncs through your own iCloud Drive, encrypted. Arkeep has no server that sees your files or their names.
The only thing your Mac sends us is what a license needs: your license key, a random device ID and your device’s name. The Privacy Policy has the details.
What Arkeep can’t do
Arkeep can tell you what’s on your drives and what was only on a drive that failed. It can’t recover files from a broken drive, and no tool can catch every failure before it happens. Keeping copies on more than one drive is still the best protection.
Questions? Read how a card is checked and how copies are verified, or write to [email protected].