Spundle – create, resize and compact sparse bundles

Simple utility to create sparse bundles of any maximum size, choose from six different file systems, and custom band sizes. Also resizes existing sparse bundles, and compacts them to save storage space. Also support for creating encrypted sparse bundles, for changing band size, and more. Update adds support for Case-sensitive APFS as a file system.
Spundle 1.2 (Intel-only for Sierra, High Sierra, Mojave and Catalina)
Spundle 1.5 (Universal App for Sierra, High Sierra, Mojave, Catalina, Big Sur, Monterey and Ventura)
Spundle 1.8 (Universal App for High Sierra, Mojave, Catalina, Big Sur, Monterey, Ventura and Sonoma)

Cormorant – compress and decompress using LZFSE in AppleArchive

Updated. Basic utility to create compressed .aar archives of folders and apps, and .lzfse for individual files, using AppleArchive; also to decompress them. Fast and efficient on both Intel and Apple Silicon Macs, and ideal for use with AirDrop as it doesn’t propagate quarantine flags on decompressed items. Now with improved internal code. Requires Big Sur or later.
Cormorant 1.5 (Universal App for Big Sur, Monterey, Ventura and Sonoma)

Stibium – run and analyse performance benchmarks on your storage

Sophisticated and customisable real-world read and write performance testing primarily for SSDs, including internal and external disks. À la carte controls let you choose file sizes, randomisation, or a standard range of sizes from 2 MB to 2 GB. Analysis using robust statistical methods, including Theil-Sen linear regression, to give results in CSV format (graphics coming soon). Extensive and detailed documentation, including source code for tests.
Stibium 1.1 (Universal App for High Sierra, Mojave, Catalina, Big Sur, Monterey, Ventura and Sonoma)

Dintch – check the integrity of your files

Updated. Dintch will tag as many files as you want with their SHA-256 digests. Once tagged, you can check at any future date whether they have changed. Tags move with each file, so you can move, copy or duplicate a tagged file and continue to check its integrity. Tags are preserved on all HFS+ and APFS volumes and most other file systems, in many backups including Time Machine, Carbon Copy Cloner and ChronoSync, and across iCloud. New version for future compatibility with xattrs.
Dintch 1.2 (Intel-only for El Capitan, Sierra, High Sierra, Mojave and Catalina)
Dintch 1.6 (Universal App for High Sierra, Mojave, Catalina, Big Sur, Monterey, Ventura and Sonoma)

Fintch – drag and drop integrity management

Drag and drop files, bundles and small folders onto Fintch to tag them with SHA256 digests. Once tagged, you can check at any future date whether they’ve changed. Tags move with each file, so you can move, copy or duplicate a tagged file and continue to check its integrity. Tags are preserved on all HFS+ and APFS volumes and most other file systems, in many backups including Time Machine, Carbon Copy Cloner and ChronoSync, and across iCloud. New version for future compatibility with xattrs.
Fintch 1.1 (Intel-only for El Capitan, Sierra, High Sierra, Mojave and Catalina)
Fintch 1.3 (Universal App for High Sierra, Mojave, Catalina, Big Sur, Monterey, Ventura and Sonoma)

cintch – command tool to check file integrity

Most of the features and options of Dintch and Fintch now in a handy command tool. This can tag, check and retag folders and individual files, with optional control over buffer size. Fully notarized, and a Universal binary.
cintch 1 (Intel-only for El Capitan, Sierra, High Sierra, Mojave and Catalina)
cintch 2a (Universal binary for El Capitan, Sierra, High Sierra, Mojave, Catalina, Big Sur and Monterey)
cintch 3 (Universal binary for Big Sur, Monterey, Ventura and Sonoma)

Known Issues:

Sadly, Spundle 1.1 can’t change band sizes in encrypted sparse bundles. I’m working on that still.
Why won’t that sparse bundle compact?

The strangeness of Photos libraries, and tagging them with Dintch

Although Fintch does have an Open menu command, I don’t recommend its use, as it behaves slightly differently to drag and drop. For example, using the Open command won’t allow you to select whole folders, and won’t look inside RTFD and similar folder-based documents. The latter means that their contents won’t be individually tagged or checked unless you open them using drag and drop, or they’re already inside a folder which you tag or check.

• Fintch works using a fixed buffer size of 512 KB; Dintch lets you set your own buffer size, which may offer improved performance with larger files;
• Fintch has no option to add timestamps when tagging; Dintch does;
• Because it’s intended for smaller tasks, Fintch always works in ‘verbose’ mode and reports full results, whereas Dintch gives you the choice, so it can be used with hundreds of thousands of files without overwhelming you with details;
• Fintch will tag and check individual files on demand, but Dintch only handles folders.

Updates: xattred 1.5, Cormorant 1.5, Metamer 1.2 and ArchiChect 2.5
Inside Apple Archive: more than a compression format
Inside Apple Archive: performance and control
Cormorant 1.4: getting more from Apple Archive

How M1 Macs feel faster than Intel models: it’s about QoS

A brief guide to disk image files
Spundle 1.8 adds support for Case-sensitive APFS sparse bundles
cintch, a command tool to check file integrity, now a Universal binary
Dintch 1.3 and Fintch 1.2 are now Universal Apps
Spundle 1.3 is now a Universal App and works fully in Big Sur
Limits to size of sparse bundles, and bugs fixed in Spundle 1.2
How would you like your sparse bundle: encrypted, changed band size, or what?
Selecting sizes for sparse bundles
Spundle: a new utility for creating and adjusting sparse bundles

Running custom storage benchmarks using Stibium

How should we check the integrity of important files?
Maintaining the integrity of important files
Efficient resilient storage
Why file integrity is important
File Integrity 1 : Why bother?
File Integrity 2 : Which digest?
File Integrity 3 : Where to store digests?
File Integrity 4 : Error-correcting code is available for macOS
File Integrity 5 : How well does error-correcting code work?
File Integrity 6 : Which image format is most resilient?
File Integrity 7 : Which other file formats are resilient?
File Integrity 8 : Compression, encryption and disk images
File Integrity 9 : How error-correcting codes work
File Integrity 10 : Effects of length of corruption on images and ECC recovery
File Integrity 11 : Which RAID levels enable file recovery?
File Integrity 12 : Error correction for large files
Vandalism
How to check the integrity of files in a Time Machine backup
cintch checks file integrity from the command line

Monitoring file integrity with updates to Dintch and Fintch
How to make Time Machine backups to an APFS disk
Dintch 1.2 and Fintch 1.1 fix memory leaks
Drag and drop for file integrity checks with Fintch
The way ahead with integrity checks, and Dintch 1.1 adds timestamps
Check file integrity with Dintch 1.0
Dintch 1.0b2 should now run on macOS 10.11 to 10.15
Checking file integrity with Dintch (first beta)
No thanks for the memories
Should we take bit rot seriously?
Beyond Time Machine: 5 Archiving