TL;DR
v3.8 B1 is out, with support for macOS Sonoma! You can download it from here:
It's Beta Season!
Hey, folks! We're back and we're happy to be bringing full Sonoma support to SuperDuper.
In general, v3.7.5 works well with Sonoma already, and this release is focused on fixing the few issues we've run into and polishing things a bit.
What's New
Sonoma is a little bit of a "Snow Ventura" release and hasn't affected SuperDuper a lot. That's both good and bad.
Good because it means that we haven't had to change a ton to get things working properly.
Bad because Apple has not improved its support for bootable backups. Their tool, required for copying the OS, remains quite fussy, sometimes doesn't work, etc. It's something we have no control over, though, so we're doing the best we can with the options available.
Backing Up on Big Sur and Later
As has been the case since Big Sur, the general way to use SuperDuper is:
- Start with an Erase, then copy backup, which will use Apple's tool to replicate the OS.
- Update that backup with "Backup - all files" with "Smart Update" in between OS updates.
- When you want to update the OS on the backup, repeat the "Erase, then copy".
One thing that's important to remember is that you can install the OS over the backup at any time to update it. That will update the OS and system applications, while leaving your data, settings and applications intact.
This means that even if you forget to update the OS, you can do it later...and, you can restore even if you don't have an OS on the backup at all.
Wait, What?
That's right. Even if the backup has no OS on it, as long as it's a "Backup - all files" with "Smart Update", you can restore. The process is easy:
- Clean install the OS to the drive you want to restore to.
- During first boot of the new OS, you'll be prompted to restore.
- At that point, select the SuperDuper backup. All your applications, settings and data will be restored.
Yes, it's that simple.
Concluding Thoughts
We think you'll have success with this new Beta release. As usual, once you've installed a Beta, you will be offered additional Beta releases of v3.8 until the final release. At that point, you'll only receive "regular" updates until you install some future Beta.
Enjoy, and let us know if you have problems.
