- Image backups can now be created and used as backup destinations, supporting both local and network disk images
- SuperDuper offers to create a disk image when a destination cannot be faithful, with automatic sizing and naming
- Encrypted disk images are now supported, with passwords stored in the login keychain for automated scheduled backups
- Existing disk images can be used as backup destinations by dragging them onto a job
- Run when connected no longer auto-ejects encrypted external drives after completion
- Clicking in a job's title now places the cursor instead of accepting the rename, allowing proper text selection and editing
- Stop button now ends immediately when SuperDuper is waiting on a password or server, without reporting it as a failure
- Each network share is now handled independently to prevent unreachable shares from stalling other drives
- Dragging a drive or disk image onto a job now correctly identifies it instead of treating it as a plain folder
- Preview now takes the same snapshot of the source as a real run for more accurate predictions
- Unlocking scheduled copies is now done via a clickable link instead of requiring manual navigation
- Window rendering now uses significantly less CPU and is more responsive
- SuperDuper automatically connects to servers, opens images, performs copies, and restores original state without leaving mounts behind
- A finished backup no longer reports as aborted
- An unmounted drive is now correctly distinguished from a disconnected one
- An unplugged drive now prompts to connect rather than asking to re-pick the destination
- Destination capacity calculation now measures the actual volume instead of the entire APFS container
- Apple Intelligence descriptions of disk images and destination names are now accurate
- Failed copies no longer incorrectly report failing hardware when stalled on a single slow file
From SuperDuper!
SuperDuper! 4.0.4 (August 25, 2026)
SuperDuper 4.0.4 has a few fixes, but mostly re-introduces image backups.
And so, to the fixes!
Image backups
You can back up to a disk image again. Point a job at a sparsebundle on a NAS, a share, or a plain external drive, and SuperDuper copies into the real APFS volume inside the image rather than onto the network volume itself.
Why bother? Speed and accuracy, when they’re needed.
The volume inside an image is real APFS, mounted locally. It keeps everything. It has an identity. Incremental copies work, and ⚡️Turbo works, so subsequent runs are much faster.
SuperDuper now offers to make one for you. Wherever it warns that a destination can't be faithful, there's now a button to switch to an image. It sizes the image to the source volume and automatically names it appropriately.
Yes, you can override the name.
Existing images work too. Just drag it onto a job.
Encrypted images are supported. Check the box when you create an image and SuperDuper asks for a password, stores it in your login keychain, and uses it from then on—including for scheduled copies while you're asleep. Or napping. Or just away from your Mac.
It cleans up after itself. SuperDuper connects to the server if it isn't mounted, opens the image, copies, closes the image, and puts the server back the way it found it. (If it didn't mount something, it doesn't unmount it.)
Fixes
Run on connect no longer auto-ejects…unexpectedly. With "Run when connected" on an encrypted external, plugging it in started the copy, but when done, ejected. No longer!
Clicking in a job's title accepted the rename instead of placing the cursor. You couldn't put the caret anywhere with the mouse, and you couldn't select. (Duh. Sorry.)
A finished backup could be reported as "aborted". It wasn't. It finished.
Stop can take a while when SuperDuper is waiting on you. If a copy was paused waiting for a password or a server, Stop now ends immediately — and doesn’t report that as a failure.
One unreachable NAS could stall every other drive. A share that had gone away would hold everything else up while we waited for it to answer. Each one now stands on its own.
Dragging a drive or a disk image onto a job treated it as a plain folder. It's now identified for what it is, the same way a paste always was.
An unmounted drive is not a disconnected one. SuperDuper was conflating the two, which made perfectly available destinations look missing.
An unplugged drive asked you to re-pick it. After a restart, an update, or a reboot, a job whose drive wasn't attached said its destination couldn't be verified and asked you to choose it again—when nothing was wrong and the drive just wasn't there. It now says to connect the drive, and only asks you to re-pick when the drive is present but the volume it was pointed at is gone.
A destination with room to spare could be called too small. When the source volume shared its APFS container with other volumes, SuperDuper sized the copy by the whole container instead of the volume you picked—so a 66GB volume sitting beside a 1.5TB neighbor was measured as 2.1TB. Both ends of that comparison now measure the actual volume.
Improvements
Apple Intelligence is now a little intelligencier. It could describe a disk image as a drive, split a destination's name in half, and (my personal favorite) print a phrase out of its own instructions as if it were the name of your backup drive. Yay!
Summaries now name the source and destination correctly, in bold, or we bail on its output.
Failures stop whining about hardware that's fine. A copy that stalled on a single slow file could be explained as "a failing drive", complete with an invented duration to back it up. Intelligence! Woo!
"Once copying is unlocked" is now something you can click. It told you why your scheduled copies were paused and then left you to go find the padlock yourself. It's a link, and it unlocks.
Preview predicts the real copy more closely. It takes the same snapshot of the source that a real run does, so what it tells you is what you'll get.
My Swift UI learning process continues. The window invalidates/redraws less often, uses significantly less CPU, and is more responsive.
Requirements
The same as before: macOS 14 or later, on Apple silicon or Intel.