📘 Time Machine is a backup tool, not a version tracker

Time Machine saved you once. Can you find the specific version of a specific file from last Tuesday?

Time Machine snapshots your whole disk hourly — great for drive failure, painful when you want one older copy of one file. It's macOS-only, has no diff, and restore means reverting folders. Keeply tracks per-project version history with visual diff, per-file restore, on Windows and macOS.

Free forever for personal use · Team $25/mo flat (coming soon).

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Great for disasters. Not great for everyday version retrieval.

Time Machine is brilliant at what it was designed for: if your Mac dies, you plug in the backup drive and restore everything. But it treats every file as an anonymous binary blob and snapshots the whole disk. To find one older version of one project file you open Time Machine, fly through the hourly starfield, guess which snapshot had the version you want, and restore the whole folder because per-file targeting is fragile. There is no diff — you have two copies of a PSD and no idea what differs. And if you're on Windows, none of this exists for you at all.

Source: Apple Support — About Time Machine backups

Feature comparison

Based on public product information as of April 2026. Keeply rows reflect shipping v1.0.10.

Feature Time Machine
(macOS built-in)		 Keeply
(recommended)
Pricing model Free (built-in macOS) Free forever · Team $25/mo flat (coming soon) · $599 Perpetual Founding Member (limited 500)
Platforms macOS only — Windows teams can't use Windows + macOS
Scope of tracking Whole disk snapshot Per-project version history
Visual file diff No — binary blob only Side-by-side diff for Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF, images
Finding a specific file's history Fly through the starfield and guess Per-file timeline, one click to any past version
Granular restore Tends to revert whole folders Restore a single file at a single save
Save descriptions None — just hourly auto-snapshots Add a note every time you save
Required storage Second external drive, size of your Mac Tiny overhead (only changes stored), fits on a USB stick
Team sharing None — single Mac per backup Push version history to shared NAS, Gitea, or GitHub
Large binary files Whole file duplicated every snapshot 38 formats + >10 MB detected silently; delta-efficient

Why people switch

How to switch to Keeply

  1. 1

    Keep Time Machine running — it's good at disaster recovery

    Don't turn it off. Time Machine is a legitimate safety net for "my whole Mac died" scenarios. Keeply is for everyday version retrieval, a different job.

  2. 2

    Install Keeply on each project folder that needs real history

    Pick your active client folders, your design files, the work you edit daily. Open each in Keeply and click Start protecting. Versioning begins from the current state with notes you write.

  3. 3

    Add a shared backup target for team members

    For multi-person projects, configure a NAS, Gitea, or GitHub backup in Keeply. Now everyone's version history converges somewhere the whole team can reach — something Time Machine cannot do.

  4. 4

    Use Time Machine for disaster, Keeply for retrieval

    Hard drive fails? Time Machine. Client asks what the logo looked like three weeks ago? Keeply's timeline, one click, visual diff, done.

Frequently asked questions

Can I run Time Machine and Keeply at the same time? ▼
Yes, and it's what we recommend. Time Machine snapshots your whole Mac as disaster recovery. Keeply tracks per-project version history with notes and visual diffs. They solve different problems and don't conflict — Keeply's data lives inside your project folder, so Time Machine just backs it up along with everything else. Belt and braces.
Does Keeply work on Windows? My team is mixed. ▼
Yes. Keeply runs on both Windows and macOS, so mixed teams share the same tool, the same version history, and the same backup targets. Linux is on the roadmap but not shipping yet. If your team has someone on Windows today, Time Machine alone can never cover them — Keeply does.
What about finding a specific older version of a single file? ▼
This is the big difference. In Time Machine you open the starfield, guess which hourly snapshot had the right version, and restore. In Keeply you open the project, click the file, see every save on a timeline with your own notes, click the version you want, and it's there. Finding a month-old version takes seconds.
Can Keeply show me what changed between two versions? ▼
Yes. Keeply renders side-by-side visual diffs for Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF, and images — you see exactly what text, numbers, or pixels differ. Time Machine has no such feature; it treats every file as an opaque binary and leaves you to spot the changes yourself. For a design or document workflow, diff is what you actually need.
Do I need a separate external drive like Time Machine requires? ▼
No. Keeply stores versions inside your project folder as small deltas, so overhead is a fraction of the full file size. You can add backup targets (USB, NAS, GitHub, Gitea) but they are optional, not required to get started. A Keeply project with months of history often fits on a USB stick where Time Machine would need a whole drive.
Where are my versions actually stored? ▼
On your own storage by default: inside the project folder on your local drive, as delta-efficient data. You can add up to three backup locations: office NAS (SMB), USB drive, self-hosted Gitea, or a private GitHub repo. Keeply runs no server that stores your project data. Cancel or uninstall anytime; files and version history stay where they are.

Ready to stop fighting your tools?

Free download for Windows and macOS. Thirty-second setup. No account required — just install and open your project folder.

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