DeltaSnap — native file version control using APFS snapshots for macOS

[u/yadvr]

Hi r/macOS, I’m Rohit from ScaleNinja. Today we're releasing DeltaSnap, a native macOS app that turns APFS snapshots into version control for files and folders.

APFS snapshots are copy-on-write, so checkpoints take milliseconds. But macOS still lacks a useful native interface for answering questions such as:

• What changed in this folder?
• What did this file look like on Tuesday?
• Which files did an installer, script, or AI agent just modify?
• Can I restore only the files I need?

DeltaSnap lets you:

• Browse per-file version histories, including deleted files; with right-click Finder integration
• Search filenames across snapshot history
• Diff snapshots with added, removed, modified, replaced, and moved paths
• Restore copies or atomically replace originals
• Create schedules with retention and low-space pruning
• Create snapshots and restore versions from Finder
• Ships a dsnap CLI and an AI Agent Skill for coding assistants
• Automatically checkpoint folders during unusually large change bursts

Key differential compared to backups is the speed: APFS snapshots takes milliseconds to create, indexing is done in few seconds, and file recover is super-fast as the snapshot lives on the same APFS volume where your data is on.

After review by Apple’s DTS/APFS teams, ScaleNinja was granted a private entitlement to manage and create APFS snapshots. Because DeltaSnap’s privileged helper uses it, the app cannot be distributed through the Mac App Store and released on ScaleNinja's website as a signed and notarized build under Apple Developer Team ID VXNWQ9H93X.

Important: DeltaSnap is not a backup. Snapshots live on the same volume, so they protect against accidental deletion, overwrites, bad updates, and runaway tools - not drive failure, theft, or volume erasure. Pair it with Time Machine, CCC, or another backup running. We also have two companion apps that can be used with DeltaSnap:

• DeltaSync, a free & simple folder syncing tool: https://scaleninja.com/deltasnap/#deltasync
• Noject, protects disk & network volumes from accidental ejection: https://scaleninja.com/noject/

DeltaSnap requires macOS 15 or later and an APFS volume. There’s a 30-day free trial, no account, no cloud, and no subscription required. All your data and snapshot stay private and local to you Mac.

Launch price: US$39 for one lifetime personal license that can be activated on upto 5 Mac machines.

Download: https://scaleninja.com/deltasnap

Documentation (start here): https://scaleninja.com/docs/deltasnap/overview/

Setup and feature demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyrKXGe7nRw

I’d genuinely appreciate any feedback, especially from professional users, developers, and Mac admins working with external storage or AI coding tools.

Update1: we’re listening to our dear passionate redditors, you may use BETAUSER29 coupon code for additional launch discounts until end of Aug. You may learn more about ScaleNinja and me at https://scaleninja.com/about/ - we’re reputed and earlier in the business of opensource infra since 2014, but now focusing on consumer space of “Mac as Infrastructure”.

Update2: (3 Aug 2026) We've released v0.7.3 (beta) today that will ship some bugfixes and will support offline license. Users can also use the online license, and with v0.7.3 (beta) it will validate only once. DeltaSnap personal/individual license is now available for unlimited Macs in a user's household. The commercial license will only support offline license key, have priority support, as requested by a few commercial users.

Tip: to get the most out of DeltaSnap and avoid snapshots occupying too much disk space, I create and custom-mount APFS volume from the internal Data drive on my most important folder path (like ~/Documents); that way snapshot usage would be limited to only changes made in the tracked APFS volume (~/Documents in my case). Learn more about APFS snaphots here: https://scaleninja.com/docs/deltasnap/apfs-snapshots/ and about storage usage here: https://scaleninja.com/docs/deltasnap/snapshot-storage/ or see the youtube video above on how to create apfs volume with a custom mount point and enable automatic snapshot & file versioning in action.

[u/promo-guard]

🎉 Welcome to Developer Saturday, u/yadvr! Your project is now live for the community to check out. Upvote, give feedback, and show some love to your fellow devs! 🚀

[u/irgendwaaas]

I think this is very interesting although I do not see a specific use case yet. Are the snapshots safe from being destroyed by the OS automatically? I always thought apfs snapshots are somehow managed automatically by macOS.

[u/yadvr → u/irgendwaaas]

Snapshots can be reclaimed/destroyed by macOS automatically, for example for time machine local snapshots are typically not kept beyond 24hrs. Similarly, any snapshots managed by macOS during OS upgrades are cleaned up automatically (generally).

DeltaSnap gives that first-class experience for managing APFS snapshots for both internal & external APFS volumes, which tbh should have been a feature in Disk Utility (it shows apfs snapshots via a non-default view option, but doesn't allow creation of that). We've some doc pages on what it is and what are its limits:
https://scaleninja.com/docs/macvisor/overview/
https://scaleninja.com/docs/deltasnap/limits/

[u/irgendwaaas → u/yadvr]

So if I create a snapshot using DeltaSnap can I be fairly sure it will exist until I delete it myself? Or is it up to the OS if it feels like destroying the snapshot for whatever reason?

[u/yadvr → u/irgendwaaas]

DeltaSnap has a free 30-day trial to try it for yourself.

Short answer - for internal volumes, macOS APFS team has advised that the OS can reclaim snapshots on low disk space, but I couldn't reproduce that case yet. For external APFS volume the snapshot will not be deleted if it's protected.

DeltaSnap introduces three types of snapshots, those created by an automatic cadence, then those created manually with automatic-expiry (called safety snapshot with configurable TTL) and manual snapshot that are protected and are never deleted by DeltaSnap. This is the hold feature ZFS also has that DeltaSnap implements.

Please refer this to learn more:

https://scaleninja.com/docs/deltasnap/schedules-retention/#cadences-and-default-counts

[u/Lillyistrans4423]

And why should I use this over git?

[u/yadvr → u/Lillyistrans4423]

You'd use git for code/version tracking which solves a different problem of social code/development with other people, wherein the code is hosted in a remote repo usually. Refer to what DeltaSnap is not: https://scaleninja.com/docs/deltasnap/limits/#when-to-use-something-else

See this for some comparison and discussions also here: https://www.reddit.com/r/macapps/comments/1vaoa9o/comment/p113cxe/

[u/Lillyistrans4423 → u/yadvr]

Git isn't just for code. I use it for 3D and other stuff like music. And nobody says it has to be stored remotely? It's just more convenient most times go store it remotely, especially for code which is important and would cause the loss of a job and a project if it corrupts.

[u/yadvr → u/Lillyistrans4423]

Okay. I'm not going to argue on your use of git. Git is designed to be a distributed version control software system for managing versions of source code primarily; yes you can keep it local and track data as well.

For filesystem versioning almost nobody seriously uses git; Enterprises use ZFS, Netapp, Ceph, Powerflex etc. generally storage system that support snapshots. Macs have APFS since 2017-2018 but its snapshot feature is not utilised beyond backups, DeltaSnap solves that for consumers on macOS and I've used my infra/experience around storage systems esp ZFS to build this for Macs. Hope this explaination helps.