Carbon Copy Cloner
Carbon Copy Cloner is a macOS backup utility that clones drives, schedules backups, and helps restore or migrate files between Macs and storage devices.
What is Carbon Copy Cloner?
Carbon Copy Cloner is a macOS backup and disk-cloning app from Bombich Software, Inc. It helps Mac users create scheduled backups, make bootable or restorable copies of data where supported, and copy files between internal drives, external disks, and network locations. The app is commonly used for routine backups, drive upgrades, Mac migrations, and keeping a secondary copy of important files that is separate from Time Machine. It also provides snapshot-based backup workflows, restore options for individual files or larger data sets, and controls for choosing exactly what gets copied. This makes it useful for home users who want dependable backups as well as advanced users who need more control over backup destinations and retention.
Key features
- Create scheduled backups to external drives and other storage destinations
- Clone files and folders for drive replacement, migration, and recovery workflows
- Restore individual files or larger sets of data from backups
- Choose exactly which files, folders, and volumes to copy
- Use snapshot-based backups to keep older versions of changed files
- Back up data to locally attached storage and supported network destinations
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Safety overview
Status: Mostly safe
Carbon Copy Cloner is legitimate backup software for macOS. To back up and restore data properly, it may request broad file access and use a privileged helper, which is normal for a backup utility with cloning and restore features. Because it can copy, overwrite, or erase data on chosen destinations as part of backup tasks, users should confirm the selected source and destination before running a job. Keep backups on the intended drive and review scheduled tasks if you no longer want automatic backups.
Recommendation: Keep Carbon Copy Cloner if you use it for backups, cloning, or Mac migration. If you no longer use its backup jobs, you can remove it, but do so only after confirming you no longer need its schedules, saved tasks, or backup destinations.
Common paths
/Applications/Carbon Copy Cloner.app
Cache paths
~/Library/Caches/com.bombich.ccc
Support paths
~/Library/Application Support/com.bombich.ccc
Preference paths
~/Library/Preferences/com.bombich.ccc.plist
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