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restic on the Mac without the command line

Guide · Fabian Faraz Farid · 03.11.2026

restic is a free backup program: fast, encrypted, stores only changes, and writes to disks, SFTP and S3 storage. The catch for many Mac users: it runs in Terminal.

What restic does well

  • Always encrypted: AES-256, the key comes from your password.
  • Deduplication: identical data is stored once, even across many backups. Every backup is still a complete state.
  • Open format: a restic repository can be read on Mac, Linux and Windows.
  • Checks built in: restic check finds damaged data.

The four key commands

restic -r /Volumes/Backup/restic init          # create a repository
restic -r /Volumes/Backup/restic backup ~      # back up
restic -r /Volumes/Backup/restic snapshots     # list backups
restic -r /Volumes/Backup/restic restore latest --target ~/Restored

What Terminal does not give you

A schedule (launchd), exclusions for caches, Full Disk Access for protected folders, notifications on errors, an overview of when the last backup and check ran, and a comfortable way to find files. All of it can be built with scripts, but someone has to maintain them.

Without Terminal

A Mac app can drive restic for you: pick a destination, set a password, done. Make sure it writes a standard restic repository. Then the commands above still get you to your data without the app.

Lifeboat backs up your Mac with restic to a disk, a NAS or your cloud storage, and restores random files every week to show you the backup works. 14 days of everything free, then 1 disk free or Pro for €39 once.

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