Frequently asked questions

Cadence puts Time Machine back into Manual mode and runs backups on its own schedule, only when your backup disk is actually connected.

macOS 27 removed the “Manually” backup option from System Settings. With automatic backups on and your disk unplugged, macOS makes a hidden local snapshot of your startup disk every hour. Those snapshots don’t appear in the Finder and show up only as “purgeable” space. Cadence turns that off and takes over the schedule.

Macs with Apple silicon, running macOS 14 or later. Cadence is built for macOS 27, where the Manual setting was removed, and is tested there.

Switching Time Machine to Manual needs administrator rights. Cadence installs a small helper once, with your approval, and uses it only to change Time Machine’s settings and run tmutil. You won’t be asked again, even after updates.

Time Machine’s settings are protected by macOS. The helper uses Full Disk Access only to read and change those settings and to run tmutil. It never reads the contents of your backups. See Grant Full Disk Access to the Cadence helper for the steps.

Yes. macOS only registers Cadence’s background helper when the app runs from Applications.

No. Cadence has no analytics, no crash reporting, no third-party code and makes no network calls. Its settings and log stay on your Mac.

You choose an interval: every 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 12 or 24 hours (the default is 2). A backup is due when that much time has passed since the last successful backup. Cadence checks once a minute, so the schedule stays right across sleep and restarts.

If your disk has been away for days, a backup starts as soon as it returns. Cadence counts a backup as successful only when Time Machine records it as complete.

Yes, if Back up when the disk connects is on and a backup is due. Cadence notices the disk within seconds and checks that it’s really mounted before starting.

Not by default. Only when on power is on out of the box, and it’s checked during a backup too, so unplugging your Mac stops the run. Cadence also waits at least 20 minutes between attempts.

Local snapshots are copies of your startup disk that macOS keeps on the Mac itself while your backup disk is away. Cadence can clean them up after a successful backup, keeping the newest one (you can change how many), and there’s a Purge button for doing it by hand.

It never deletes the snapshots Time Machine needs as the starting point for your next backup, so cleanup won’t force a full re-copy. Cleanup only affects local snapshots, not the backups on your Time Machine disk.

Not yet. Cadence works with a backup disk connected directly to your Mac. Support for network destinations is planned.

Yes. Choose Back Up Now from the Cadence menu. Stop Backup, Browse Backups… and Time Machine settings are in the same menu.

Cadence is in beta and pricing will be announced at launch. Our paid Mac apps work the same way: you buy a major version once, every update to that version is included, and each license covers 2 Macs.

Leave your email with Join the beta on the Cadence page. We’ll email you when a beta build is ready.

No. Our apps aren’t subscriptions. When a new major version comes out, upgrading from the previous one is 50% off. See Licensing for the details.

Keys are sent by email when you buy. You can have yours re-sent at licenses.xenoplexus.com/recover.

Open the Cadence menu and check the disk status and last backup time. The usual reasons are:

• the backup disk wasn’t mounted,
• your Mac was on battery with Only when on power on,
• fewer than 20 minutes had passed since the last attempt, or
• Time Machine was switched back to Automatic, so Cadence stepped aside.

If none of these apply, open the log from the Cadence menu and attach it to a support ticket.

The helper has stopped reporting for more than three minutes. Rather than show a backup that isn’t happening, Cadence flags it and the banner in its menu offers to restart the helper.

That’s expected. Cadence notices when the installed helper is older than the app and restarts it with one click. No administrator password is needed.

Cadence can hide Apple’s icon while it runs so you don’t see two. It puts Apple’s icon back when you quit Cadence.

Choose the log from the Cadence menu, or open /Library/Logs/Cadence/cadence.log. It rotates at 1 MB. Attaching it to a support ticket helps us answer faster.