Choosing a destination

MomentBackup backs up to storage you own. Each kind has a sweet spot.

External drive

The simplest and fastest option. Format the drive, plug it in, pick it during setup. Backups run whenever the drive is connected; if it’s unplugged, MomentBackup simply waits and tells you how long it’s been since the last backup.

Network drive (NAS or shared folder)

The set-and-forget option — backups run on schedule without anything plugged in. Enter the share address (for example smb://nas.local/Backups) or pick a discovered share. Your share credentials are stored in the operating system’s secure store — the macOS Keychain, Windows Credential Manager, or the Linux Secret Service — never in a plain file. Before each scheduled run, MomentBackup reconnects the share itself; if the share is genuinely unreachable, the backup fails clearly rather than writing somewhere wrong.

MomentBackup uses the same kind of SMB share Time Machine does and keeps its backups in its own space, so one NAS can serve your Mac’s Time Machine and MomentBackup side by side.

On Windows, whole-computer images can use a local or external drive, or a connected NAS.

Cloud storage

An off-site File History copy that survives fire, theft, and flood. You can use Google Drive or your own S3-compatible bucket. You bring the account or bucket and pay the provider directly at their rates; access keys and tokens are stored in the OS secure store. Cloud and SSH destinations do not store whole-computer images.

Turn encryption on for cloud destinations. MomentBackup will warn you before sending unencrypted backups to a bucket — your provider should be storing ciphertext, not your files.

Still stuck? Email [email protected] and include what you were doing and what you expected.