SuperDuper! 4

SuperDuper! 4.0.9 (October 1, 2026)

Welcome to October!

SuperDuper 4 has been out for two months, with no major problems found, which is great.

But it does leave me with time to chase down incredibly obscure ones, and so…SuperDuper 4.0.9 fixes a few more network destination problems (so many worms in that particular can), improves copy status, and adds a new example logging Shortcut for your shortcutting pleasure.

Network destinations

Also, welcome to 1982. Legacy Humans, such as I, will feel some pangs of nostalgia about this one. Turns out, some NAS devices (like Synology) will write a file or folder named AUX, CON, NUL, PRN, COM1, but when you try to read it, it has been changed to a crazy name like AHY9U3~9.

Needless to say, this was inconvenient, and caused copies to fail (GarageBand actually has a folder called Aux in its app bundle).

SuperDuper now checks which of those names the destination can actually store and logs how many it skipped. (Which should be few-to-none.)

Hopefully this will make someone’s life a little less confusing.

Copies stop faster on error. After an error ended a copy, SuperDuper could still go on to the cleanup work at the end before reporting it. No longer.

Saved share passwords found! A password saved for a specific share (e.g. smb://server.local/share) could be missed, giving an error on connect if a password was needed.

Read-only folders on NAS devices. Welcome to Obscure Valley. To the left, note another SMB problem, where some Samba-based NAS devices exactly enforce a folder’s permissions, so removing something from inside a read-only folder could fail with “Permission denied”.

SuperDuper already unlocks those folders for the copy and puts them back afterwards, but immediately after reading a folder, macOS misreports its permissions, causing errors.

We’ll continue now to the right, on Workaround Lane.

macOS 27 vs. accented names. Further along the way, note that after updating to macOS 27, accented names (like Übersicht) written to NASen could fail with “No such file or directory”. We’ll once again take a trip further down Workaround Lane to avoid additional weird macOS regressions…at least until I find another one.

Permissions, measured. Rather than assume worst-case behavior on NAS devices, SuperDuper now checks the destination’s behavior at the start of a copy, which can speed up copies of lots of small files.

Progress and status

Cleanup at the end of a copy…cleaned up. After a copy, on a slow destination (like a NAS), the end-of-copy cleanup could say it was still scanning, when it wasn’t. It now shows “Removing N items…” while cleaning.

Interface

Phases, like elephants, no longer forget. Expanding a phase in a job to see its details now sticks. Each job remembers which phases you opened, even after you quit and relaunch SuperDuper.

You’re welcome, mjt!

Shortcuts

SuperDuper Backup Dashboard Shortcut available. There’s a new Log SuperDuper Backup to Dashboard Shortcut you can pick as a Run a Shortcut action. Once picked, it’ll ask you for various permissions, and to choose a folder for the dashboard. From then on, that job (and any other you select it for) adds a row to a Numbers spreadsheet in that folder when it runs.

If you pick an iCloud location for the document (the default), you can share this between Macs and they can all log to the same spreadsheet. You can even review it from an iPad, iPhone or browser.

At the top of the dashboard spreadsheet you’ll see one row per copy job: its name, how long since it last succeeded, its last result, how many times it has run and failed, and its average and most recent run time, with a chart comparing them. You can uncheck a job’s Show box to drop its runs from the table and charts below: that way, you can focus on one job, or compare a few.

Requirements

The same as before: macOS 14 or later, including macOS 27 (Golden Gate), on Apple silicon or Intel.

SuperDuper! 4.0.8 (September 24, 2026)

SuperDuper 4.0.8 improves copies directly to network drives and tweaks a number of smaller things throughout.

Network destinations

Better explanations when a connection fails. SuperDuper used to give a “save password” message too often. It now tells you what actually went wrong: the server couldn’t be reached, the password wasn’t accepted, access was refused, blah-blah-blah.

Very slow network connections work better with on-wake scheduled copies. SuperDuper made some assumptions about network availability that were true in most cases, but some weird network proxy programs (Surge) caused weird delays for, no doubt, weird reasons. It now waits for the network, and tries again if the server isn’t reachable.

Sambaaaaaa!!

There’s a whole series of fixes for Samba + fruit mods that honor Mac permissions. This is an unusual case, but, well, it’s out there.

For those:

• A folder that was read-only on the source could refuse to let SuperDuper put anything inside it, and the copy failed with “Permission denied.” Those folders now copy, and end up read-only as they should.
• Along similar lines, read-only files and folders couldn’t have their dates set. They now keep the original’s date.
• Files with no permissions (i.e. 000) would become untouchable once that permission was set. SuperDuper now stores them readable by their owner on network drives, which keeps them maintainable…slightly changed, but better than the alternative.
• SuperDuper now gives better errors when the server stomps its little server feet and refuses a change, rather than just “Permission denied.”

Copying on connect

Copy on connect is more reliable. Plugging in a destination set to copy when it connects didn’t always start the copy, particularly on a busy Mac. SuperDuper also recognizes drives more quickly when they’re connected.

Disk image destinations copy on connect, too. Plugging in the drive that holds a disk image destination now starts that copy.

Plugging in a drive to restore from doesn’t start a pending copy. A copy that had files left to finish could start when its drive was connected later, even if it wasn’t set to copy on connect. That could happen when you plugged in a backup to restore from it. It now only starts if the copy is set to copy on connect.

Disk images

Images aren’t grown when they don’t need to be. A disk image with plenty of free space could be grown on every copy, and on a slow network server, checking its size could take long enough to fail the copy.

Copy Rules

Every rule you made can be edited. Rules saved without “Make selectable by the user” couldn’t be opened again. (Duh! I’m an idiot!) They can now be opened via File ▸ Edit Copy Rule, and a rule included in another can be edited right from the rule editor.¹

Drag fixed. Rows under “Rules you made” could only be dragged from a thin strip near their top edge. See “duh” above.

Progress and status

Better status for slow file copies. A copy working on a single large file could show “Deleting files…” when it was, most definitely, not.

Copies finish sooner. Folder dates are now fixed as the copy progresses, instead of in a separate pass at the end.²

Interface

Show in Finder works more often. On failure, the Show in Finder button didn’t work for files that hadn’t yet been created. It now shows the file, or the nearest folder that exists.

Job titles can always be renamed. After a window manager (like Rectangle) moved SuperDuper’s window, renaming a job’s could stop working until SuperDuper was relaunched.

30ms blink gone! A weird blank window sometimes appeared for 30ms the first time you clicked in a text field after launch. (That took a day to find. Thanks, SwiftUI.)

The menu bar icon no longer plays peek-a-boo. Speaking of blinking: after a copy finished, the icon could appear and disappear for several seconds while SuperDuper tidied up…so I tidied that up.

Setup now names the right System Settings section. When giving instructions for enabling the helper, SuperDuper now uses the section name in your version of macOS: “Allow in the background” on macOS 14 and 15, and “Background App Activity” on macOS 26 and later.³

I probably should have just used vaguer terms, but hey, maybe stop renaming stuff, Apple? ;-)

Requirements

The same as before: macOS 14 or later, including macOS 27 (Golden Gate), on Apple silicon or Intel.