Frequently Asked Questions

Below are some frequently asked questions. Our help documentation also contains answers to many of the questions you may have.

To find out which version of IvyBackup you have, select from the IvyBackup ribbon menu:

Help > About

Sales / Licensing

If you buy a perpetual license you will get lifetime access to the version of the software you purchased the license for, including updates. However, this plan does not include future versions of the software. Should a new version be released, you would need to purchase a new plan to access it.

We accept all major credit cards, PayPal and wire transfer. We have support for up to 29 payment methods and over 60 payment currencies.

If you pay by credit card we will automatically send you your license key within a few seconds once the payment clears. For other payment options ( i.e. wire transfer ), once we have verification that the payment has been received you will receive your license key by email.

Here are some other reasons why you may not have received your license key immediately:

  • Our email has been spam filtered. Check your spam folder to ensure our email was not incorrectly flagged.
  • You gave an incorrect email address when purchasing. If this is the case, email us with a valid email address, your first and last name and request that we re-send your license information.

If you’re having problems with your license key, there could be a number of reasons:

  • Incorrectly copying the license key: To avoid input errors, make sure to copy-and-paste the entire license key directly from the email you received.
  • Using an invalid license key: A version 3 license key will only work for version 3 of IvyBackup.

You can only install IvyBackup on up to 1  machine per license. If you need to install it on more machines, you will need to purchase additional licenses. We offer bulk discounts and organizational licenses

License keys are not transferable and hence cannot be shared between individuals. 

License keys are not transferable and hence cannot be shared between individuals.

Yes,  contact us to quote you for an organizational license.

Common Questions

IvyBackup is an easy-to-use backup tool for your Windows computer.

It saves you time because it makes your backup and restore tasks more efficient and less hands on.

A backup job is a collection of information that IvyBackup uses to create backups.

A backup job contains information such as a title, description, backup schedules, filters and source/destination locations among other options.

A pre/post backup action is any task or event that is performed immediately before or after a backup is created.

Snapshots let you restore individual files faster.

For example, if all you want to do is restore one file but do not wish to restore the entire backup just to access that one version of the file, you can choose to view its snapshots.

To copy backup jobs from one PC to another, you will need to export them from the original PC and import them on the target PC. To do this, you will need to:

On the original PC: Select from the Tools menu: Export -> Jobs. Select a save location for the exported file. Select which jobs you want to export. Transfer the exported jobs file to the target PC. On the target PC: Select from the Tools menu: Import -> Jobs

Select the file that was exported by the original PC. Select which jobs you want to import. IvyBackup will try and validate some of the settings in the jobs file to ensure that the locations you set on the original PC are still valid.

IvyBackup is currently available in English, French, German, Russian, Italian, Polish, and Turkish. Our software is Unicode enabled, so it can handle a wide range of non-English characters.

IvyBackup is currently not available for the Mac. To be informed when it is finally available, signup for our monthly newsletter.

IvyBackup is currently not available for the iPad.

IvyBackup is currently not available for Linux.

Backups

A drive image backup is a type of backup where an exact copy image of your hard drive is made.

This drive image is an exact replica of your hard drive and contains all your applications, files and operating system. It can be restored from our recovery disk to perform bare metal restores.

A smart backup is a backup method that focuses only on the changes that have occurred since the last backup. IvyBackup lets you create two types of smart backups; differential backups and incremental backups.

A backup test is an operation that verifies the integrity of a backup. In short, it confirms that the backup, its files and any related information is valid. A backup test avoids the situations that occur at restore time when users discover that their backups no longer work.

A full backup is a comprehensive backup method. In this method, a backup of all the files and folders in the source is made. This means that each time a backup is made, an entire copy of every file in the source is backed up.

Some advantages of full backups include:

  • Backups are easy and fast to restore( minimal time to restore ) because all the backup files are bundled together in one set.
  • Managing different versions of backed up data is straightforward.
  • Backups have no dependencies on each other.

Some disadvantages of full backups include:

  • Backups take relatively longer to create because each and every file is backed up regardless of its state in the last backup i.e. unchanged files are backed up.
  • Backups require considerable storage space ( relative to the size of the source ). Because each file is backed up regardless of whether it has been modified or not. Full backups are not particularly storage space efficient.

A differential backup is a backup type where only the changes that have occurred since the last full backup are backed up.

Differential backups are more storage space efficient than full backups. However, these backups take considerably longer to restore as the underlying full backup has to be restored first.

Some advantages of differential backups include:

  • Backup creation is faster than that of full backups especially if few changes have occurred.
  • More storage space efficient than full backups.
  • Faster backup restore time than incremental backups.

Some disadvantages of differential backups include:

  • Backup creation is slower than that of incremental backups.
  • Backup restores are slower than full backups.
  • Backups have a dependency on the full backup they are created from. If the associated full backup is missing or corrupted, the differential backup cannot be restored.

An Incremental backup is a backup type where only the changes that have occurred since the last backup are backed up.

An incremental backup is different from a differential backup in the sense that the last backup can be of any type i.e. full, differential or even incremental.

Incremental backups offer faster backup creation and more efficient storage space utilization than either full backups or differential backups.

Some advantages of incremental backups include:

  • More storage space efficient than differential or full backups.
  • Backup creation is faster than that of full backups or differential backups especially if few changes have occurred.

Some disadvantages of incremental backups include:

  • Restores are slower than both differential or full backups.
  • Incremental backups have a high potential for creating backup dependencies. What this means is that, over time, incremental backup creation time increases especially if full or differential backups are created infrequently.

Yes you can transfer backups made on one machine to another machine. To do this, simply transfer all the backup files made on the original machine to the target machine. On the target machine, from IvyBackup’s Tools menu, select Import Backups.

Yes you can.

IvyBackup has built in support for 256 Bit AES encryption and can automatically encrypt your backups. This setting can be set on a job-by-job basis.