hbkit

Open a Hyper Backup (.hbk) on an Apple silicon Mac

hbkit is an open reader for your own backups. It reads Synology Hyper Backup archives natively on Apple silicon and Intel Macs. Browse the files in a terminal, check their chunks and restore what you need, without a NAS or Synology software.

hbkit never writes to the archive. If it is your only copy, copy the whole .hbk folder to another disk first and run hbkit on the copy.

Your archives stay readable

FORMAT.md is a public description of the .hbk format, written so archives stay readable. Anyone can use it to write another reader.

Hyper Backup Explorer 3.0.1 for Mac is built for Intel and uses Rosetta on Apple silicon. Apple says Rosetta, which runs Intel apps on Apple silicon, stays available for all apps only through macOS 27. Apple’s notice explains its availability.

First, make the backup readable by macOS

A .hbk archive is a folder with Config/ and Pool/ inside. Copy the whole folder, not only the .bkpi marker file.

macOS can't read an ext4 USB disk on its own. hbkit does not add ext4 support. You have three ways to reach the archive:

  • Use a mounted NAS share. The NAS reads the disk, and macOS sees a network folder.
  • Use an ext4 driver for macOS. The driver must let you read the whole .hbk folder.
  • Use a Linux virtual machine to read the disk. You can run hbkit inside Linux or copy the whole archive to storage your Mac can read.

The commands below use /Volumes/Backup. Replace it with the path to your mounted backup or its copy. If the disk is failing, read the damaged-backup guide before running anything.

Install hbkit

brew install YordiLorenzo/tap/hbkit

Homebrew installs liblz4 with hbkit. With Python 3.10 or newer, you can also use pipx install hbkit or pip install hbkit. Install liblz4 separately with brew install lz4.

Check the archive

hbk /Volumes/Backup doctor

doctor reads the layout and rebuilds a sample of files. It checks each chunk against the archive's own MD5 and CRC32. A passing sample does not check every file.

For an encrypted archive, add -p and the password or set HBK_PASSWORD. doctor does not prompt for a password. If it reports a failure, follow the damaged-backup guide.

Browse and restore

hbk-tui /Volumes/Backup

Press space to tick a folder, d to choose the destination and r to restore. The browser checks whether your selection fits before you start.

For the command line:

hbk /Volumes/Backup versions
hbk /Volumes/Backup list invoice
hbk /Volumes/Backup get "/Photos/*" ~/restore

hbkit reads the newest complete version by default. Add --version N to choose one listed by versions. Paths start with the share name. The example restores to ~/restore/Photos/ and keeps the original modification times. Run the same command again if the restore stops.

After installation, hbkit works offline for a local disk and makes no network connections itself. A cloud bucket needs an rclone mount. The Restore without a NAS guide covers buckets, backup versions and other restore options.

Limits

Synology C2 Storage: Not tested yet. Use Hyper Backup Explorer for C2, key-file access and older RSA-encrypted archives. hbkit opens archives encrypted in Hyper Backup when you give it the password.

hbkit needs Config/ and Pool/. It can't repair damaged archives or recover from Pool/ alone. Files stored by whole-file dedup are not supported yet.

On Windows, CI restores test archives byte-exact on every change. A backup from a real NAS has not been restored on Windows yet.

Every command and install option is in the README.