In a blog post today, Backblaze announced the latest version of its Backblaze Cloud Backup service, Backblaze 7.0. In addition to providing full macOS Catalina support, Backblaze 7.0 support extended version history.

Previously, Backblaze users were limited to a 30-day version history of backed up files. This meant that if you deleted something from your hard drive, and didn’t realize it within 30 days, that file was gone forever. Now, users have the ability to extend this to a full year or forever.

1-year version history will run an additional $2 per month, and is charged based on the license you have (monthly, yearly or 2-year payments). Forever version history also runs an additional $2 per month, plus $0.005 GB/month for versions modified more than one year ago.

For more information on how extended version history works, visit the Backblaze FAQ page.

Additional updates

In addition to offering extended version history, Backblaze 7.0 includes a variety of updates for all users.

More efficient performance for uploads

The maximum packet size for files has increased from 30 MB to 100 MB, which allows the app to transmit data more efficiently by leveraging threading. This also evens out upload performance, reduces sensitivity to latency and leads to smaller data structures.

Single sign-on updates for Backblaze Groups

Support has been added for Microsoft Office 365 in Backblaze Groups, and single sign-on functionality to the Inherit Backup State feature have been added. This means you can now sign into Backblaze with your Office 365 credentials, similar to using your Google account to sign in.

Higher resolution

Installers and applications on all operating systems have been updated to fully support high-resolution displays.

Windows fixes

An OpenSSL issue has been fixed with Intel’s Apollo Lake chipset.

macOS Catalina support and upgrades

The latest version of Apple’s computer operating system — macOS Catalina — is now fully supported. With macOS Catalina, users may notice more system messages when installing Backblaze for the first time on the new OS, due to Apple now requiring apps to ask for permissions more regularly.

Updated Restores interface

The date drop-down menu when restoring from backups has been changed to a datepicker, allowing users to more easily choose the dates and times to restore files from.