iOS-only backups with BeeStation and Parachute

As I wrote a couple of months ago, I’m now iOS only and this created a challenge with backing up my devices to something other than iCloud.

I ended up buying the Synology BeeStation and connecting to it via Parachute (shout out to Al Power for suggesting this app!).

This is working well!

The BeeStation was very easy to setup. Within about five minutes of plugging it in, it was available on the sidebar of Files.app on my devices. Although it comes with two apps: BeePhotos for photos and BeeFiles for files, I found both rather clunky and unnecessary, given I’m using Parachute.

Parachute is a great app focused on one thing: backing up an iOS device. The only trick with this is that it can’t use the standard Files.app interface to access the BeeStation. Rather, I had to enable local access on the BeeStation to turn on the SMB Service that is then accessible by Parachute. Once you know this, it is an easy toggle of two checkboxes in the Advanced Settings of the BeeStation.

Once Parachute had access, I set up a source and destination for files and one for photos. Both of these backups are then automated via Shortcuts to run late at night (there’s a clear help video in the app on this). Parachute takes care of the incremental backups (that is, only backing up new or modified files). These are my regular backups. I then also make “restore points” manually via dragging and dropping files in Files.app.

I feel much better having a backup solution that is fully independent of Apple. I also appreciate having a physical device on my shelf that has all of our files and photos on it. Good to have some peace of mind.