FizzleFoil — your iCloud, safe on your own drive

iCloud syncs. It doesn't back up.

Delete a photo on your phone and it's gone from your Mac too. Lose access to your Apple account and everything goes with it. FizzleFoil keeps a separate, complete copy of your iCloud on a drive you own, and keeps it up to date by itself.

Mac guide iPhone & iPad guide Windows guide Privacy

What it backs up

Photos

Every photo and video in full size, with your edits, Live Photos and RAW files. Your albums become folders, without taking up extra space.

Shared Albums

Albums you share, and ones other people share with you, saved as folders.

iCloud Drive

Your files and the app folders inside it, such as Pages and Numbers. Pick which folders to include.

Contacts

Everyone, from every account, in one standard file any contacts app can import.

Calendars & Reminders

Standard calendar files that Calendar, Outlook and Google Calendar can all open.

Readable without the app

Everything is ordinary files in tidy Year / Month folders. Open them in Finder, on any Mac.

Then it looks after itself

Plug in and forget

Back up every day at a set time, or the moment your drive is plugged in. A missed backup runs as soon as it can.

Every copy checked

Each file is read back from the drive and compared before it counts as safe. "Check my backup" re-checks the lot and repairs anything a failing drive has damaged.

Put photos back

Restore missing photos straight into Photos, with their dates, places, albums and even editable edits. Nothing is ever doubled up.

The promises it keeps

It never changes your iCloud. It only reads. The one exception is restoring photos, which only adds, and only when you ask.
Nothing is thrown away. When something changes or is deleted in iCloud, the old copy is set aside on the drive, never erased.
Nothing leaves your Mac. No account, no servers, no tracking. Your data goes from your Mac to your drive and nowhere else.
Paid once. No subscription.

Mac: macOS 14 or later. iPhone and iPad: iOS 17 or later, with a drive plugged in; the iPhone and iPad app backs up photos, contacts and calendars (iCloud Drive is backed up by the Mac app). Windows: Windows 10 or 11 with Apple's iCloud for Windows app, backing up iCloud Photos and iCloud Drive. All need an external drive. Some apps, Books for example, keep their iCloud folder private, so App Store rules don't let FizzleFoil read them.