Carbon Copy Cloner

Name: Carbon Copy Cloner
Price: 49.99 USD
Availability: InStock
Author: Bombich Software

Full-disk copies and versioned local backups you can restore from

Price: $49.99 once

This versionThe next major is a new purchase

Buy direct Website

Price read 22 Sep 2026 on sites.fastspring.com, the page Buy direct opens.

The catch

CCC 8 will be a paid upgrade, discounted for existing owners

The full picture

Major versions are paid: your CCC 7 licence also unlocks CCC 5 and 6, but the next major release will cost again at a 25-50% discount. Apple no longer guarantees a bootable clone of the system volume on Apple silicon, so treat CCC as a data-restore tool rather than a guaranteed spare boot disk. It copies to drives and network shares you own; no cloud storage is included, and the current version requires macOS Ventura or later.

Pays back in: 6 months
Seats: No Mac count statedNo seat count: the Personal & Household licence covers every Mac in your household for non-commercial use.
Developer account: None needed

Buy once

$49.99Rent 5 years

$495

$445 kept over five years, and you still have the app.
Against Backblaze Personal Backup at $99 a year, offsite subscription backup — CCC replaces the local half of a backup plan, not the offsite half.

What it looks like

Carbon Copy Cloner: The CCC main window mid-backup: full toolbar (Back/Next, Sidebar, Settings, New Task, Restore, Preview, Compare, Task History, Tips, Help), the Tasks/Volumes sidebar listing Daily Backups with CCC Backup / Cloud Storage Backup / Home to NAS / Media Backup, the live "Comparing and copying files" progress banner with the throughput graph and discovered/evaluated/copied counters, and the Source → Destination → Automation cards below. 1500x682 JPEG. — The CCC main window mid-backup. Vendor site (bombich.com hero image)

Carbon Copy Cloner: The same CCC window in a narrower crop (1200x723) — slightly taller, so the bottom bar with Task Filter / Advanced Settings / Notes / Start is fully visible. Use as the fallback if the wide one crops badly. — The same CCC window in a narrower crop (1200x723) — slightly taller, so the bottom bar with Task Filter / Advanced Settings / Notes / Start is fully visible. Vendor site

Images belong to their developers.

What you’re buying

Carbon Copy Cloner is the app Mac people reach for when they want a local backup they have actually tested. Point it at an external drive and it writes a full copy of your disk, file for file, then keeps that copy current on a schedule or whenever the drive is plugged in. On APFS it takes snapshots, so you can go back to how a folder looked last Tuesday rather than only to the latest state. The task history is legible in a way Time Machine's is not: you can see what was copied, what was skipped and why.

One payment of $49.99 covers every Mac in your household for personal use, and that licence keeps working on CCC 5, 6 and 7. The boundary is the major version. CCC 8 will be a fresh purchase at a discount, and the app will not stop working if you decline it.

Do not buy it expecting an emergency boot disk. On Apple silicon, Apple no longer promises that a copied system volume will boot, and Bombich is upfront about that. What you get is a complete, mountable copy of your data that restores quickly from a drive on your desk.

If Time Machine has never let you down and you have no external drive routine, start with a drive, not with this.

What owners report

Points that recur across the discussions below. A report of what users say, not our verdict: we don’t review software.

Praised

Owners keep coming back to the control it gives them — choosing exactly what is copied, where it goes, and when, including copies to network volumes
Fast incremental runs and a copy you can open and browse yourself are the reasons people give for paying rather than leaving it to Time Machine

Criticised

A recurring outcome in these threads is someone deciding Time Machine already covered them, and that CCC's extra control was not worth configuring
Owners on Apple silicon repeatedly report clones that will not boot, or stall partway, and advise treating it as a data copy rather than a spare startup disk

Apple Support Communities · 8 Jun 2022which works best CCC or super duper?
Owners of both say each has saved them from a failing disk; CCC wins on flexibility and network copies, and the thread turns to bootable clones misbehaving on M1 Macs.
Apple Support Communities · 28 Feb 2024Is installing Carbon Copy Cloner on my iMac worth it?
Split answer — people who want selective, scheduled or networked copies say it earns its price, and others say Time Machine is free and already enough.
Apple Support Communities · 8 Nov 2025Time Machine vs Carbon Copy Cloner
A CCC 7 owner asks how to use it; the replies conclude it suits people who want to decide exactly what is copied, and that Time Machine is the set-and-forget option.

Details

The price in full

$49.99 for the Personal & Household licence, valid on every Mac in your household for non-commercial use, and also valid with CCC 5 and CCC 6. Upgrades from older versions run 25-50% off. Commercial use needs a separate licence from Bombich's corporate store. Prices exclude local taxes and VAT.

The Carbon Copy Cloner page at bombich.com — The developer’s own page. bombich.com, captured 22 Sep 2026

Free trial: Yes
Works offline: Yes
Apple Silicon: Native
On Setapp: No
Minimum macOS: macOS 13
Developer: Bombich Software

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