Genie Timeline Home

Review summary

Good points

Bad points

Our verdict

Users who need a file-backup program that is reliable and intuitive should give Genie Timeline Home a shot. This feature-packed software offers a lot for very little, and its core functions work flawlessly.

Full review

Since 2001, Genie9 has worked to develop backup and security software for home and business PC users. The Genie9 products designed for home users are usually extremely simple and easy to use. According to Genie9, Genie Timeline Home is more than just a data-storage application, it is a featured-packed backup suite that manages to keep files safe without any fuss. Since Genie9 clearly has a lot of confidence in their products, we were extremely excited to test out Genie Timeline Home.

Setup

The latest version of Genie Timeline Home supports 32 and 64-bit versions of XP, Vista, and Windows 7. The installer is over 150MB, so be sure to download it on a fast connection. Also, be sure to install it on a system with at least 512MB of RAM and 200MB of free hard-drive space.

On our test system, which has 1GB of memory and runs Windows 10, Genie Timeline Home installed quickly and without any issues. Just a few minutes after opening its installer, Genie Timeline Home presented us with its wizard for setting up backups.

Backup

Genie Timeline Home's setup wizard breaks the backup process into 3 easy steps. The first step, selecting the backup drive, took only a few seconds for us to get through. Then, after we selected a drive, the wizard presented us with a display of several different file types, such as music files and photos, that it could backup. This display also allowed us to select specific files and folders. Finally, once we had made our decisions concerning backups, the last step simply had us decide whether or not to compress our backup.

Once we had gone through the setup wizard, we were able to return to our backup schedule and make adjustments. We reconfigured our settings slightly so that new backups would be created every 30 minutes. Unfortunately, however, there are not really a whole lot of customizations that can be made in this software's options, which may disappoint advanced users of backup programs.

System performance

Genie Timeline Home performs extremely well, even on systems with only average specifications. On our system, this software was snappy, and it had no noticeable impact on our system's performance. In fact, we were even able to watch movies and run demanding games without issues while Genie Timeline Home performed its regular backups.

Restore

Restoring files with Genie Timeline Home is incredibly easy. This software's restoration feature works in a manner that resembles Apple's Time Machine. When users are interested in restoring a file, they simply browse through a list of backed-up files; these files can be listed by date and time, which is easy to adjust. Adjustments are made with a slider bar located at the top of the file-restoration window that provides users with a visual representation of their files' backup dates.

Features

Multilingual support - Genie Timeline Home is available in 11 languages, including English, German, Spanish, French, and Italian.

Mobile backups - This feature automatically makes copies of the synced files of iPhones, iPods, iPads, and Blackberries so that users' mobile data is always backed up.

iPhone monitoring app – This feature can be used to link mobile iOS-based devices to Genie Timeline Home and monitor the status of backups remotely.

Ease of use

Genie Timeline Home is an extremely easy-to-use tool. This software features a graphic-rich interface that is incredibly intuitive. Also, when users feel the need to add a file to this software's backup list or adjust its options, they can do so without much effort. Thanks to Genie Timeline Home's highly intelligent, largely automated backup process, most users will not encounter any issues with this software.

Help & support

The Genie9 website offers a lot of support information. From the support menu on this website, users have easy access to a knowledge base, tutorials, an FAQ, an active forum and more. Genie9 also provides free technical support to customers of Genie Timeline Home via e-mail.

Overall

From start to finish, Genie Timeline Home is effective and easy to use. It guides users through the backup process and restores files in an intuitive manner. As an added bonus, this software does all of these things without draining system resources. However, Genie Timeline Home is not perfect. Advanced users may find this software's lack of customization options a little frustrating. All things considered, Genie Timeline Home is an excellent piece of data-backup software, especially for novices.

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