Questions and answers
What Octal and DriveBench cost, where to get them, and what they do and don't do with your data.
Price and support
Is Octal free?
Yes. No subscription, trial, in-app purchases or ads. Every feature is included and nothing is locked or time-limited. Install it on all your Macs; there's no license or account to tie it to one.
How is Octal paid for?
By people who choose to support it. Support pays for the Apple developer program, hosting, domains and other ongoing costs as well as the time it takes to keep Octal going and improving. Support is welcome but never required, and it doesn't unlock anything.
Support goes through Ko-fi, which handles the payment. Your card or PayPal details never reach us, and neither Octal nor this website stores any personal details about who has supported.
The sidebar shows a small support banner. Not Now hides it for 7 days, and I've already supported Octal in Settings hides it for good.
Getting Octal
Is Octal on the Mac App Store?
No. Octal is downloaded from octal.tools. App Store apps have to run in a sandbox, which would rule out parts of Octal such as S.M.A.R.T. disk health, packet capture, and running your own command-line tools as custom actions.
The download is signed with Apple's Developer ID and notarized by Apple, so macOS will open it. If macOS blocks it, choose App Store & Known Developers under Allow applications from in System Settings ▸ Privacy & Security.
Which Macs does it run on?
Any Mac with macOS 14 Sonoma or later. It's one universal app for Apple silicon and Intel. We can't test every Mac, so please tell us if you have problems.
How do updates work?
Octal updates itself in place: when a new version is out, it offers to install it. If you'd rather it didn't check by itself, turn off Check for updates automatically in Settings ▸ Updates, and check whenever you like with Octal ▸ Check for Updates…. Release notes are on the download page.
Privacy
Octal is a file manager, so it can see everything on your Mac. It keeps all of that on your Mac.
Does Octal collect any data?
No. There's no analytics, no usage tracking, no account and no sign-in. Nothing about your files, folders or servers leaves your Mac unless you send it somewhere yourself.
Does Octal connect to the cloud?
No. Octal has no cloud service: it doesn't sync, upload or back up your files or settings anywhere. On its own it makes two kinds of connection:
- The update check, which asks whether a new version is out. It carries nothing beyond what any web request does, such as the app version, and you can turn it off.
- The internet quality graph in the Network panel, which pings a public DNS server (1.1.1.1 by default) to chart your connection's response time. A ping carries no data. Change the host, or turn the graph off, in Settings ▸ Network.
Finding servers on your local network uses your local network only. Everything else happens when you ask for it: connecting to a server, or sending a problem report.
Where are my server passwords kept?
In the macOS Keychain. Octal sends them only to the server they belong to.
What does Report a Problem send?
Help ▸ Report a Problem…, in Octal or DriveBench, files a bug or feature request without leaving the app. It sends what you type, an optional email address for follow-up, and the basics needed to reproduce a bug: the app's version, the macOS version, and the Mac's model, chip and memory.
For a bug you can also attach diagnostics: a log of recent activity in the app. It's off by default. Before anything is written to the log, file names, servers and accounts are replaced with anonymous tokens. Click View… to read the exact text that would be sent before you submit. Reports go to a private issue tracker, and nothing is sent until you click Send.
See the privacy page for the full details.
DriveBench
Is DriveBench free too?
Yes, on the same terms as Octal: no charge, no subscription, nothing locked, on as many Macs as you like. It's downloaded from the download page rather than the Mac App Store, and updates itself the same way.
Do I need DriveBench if I have Octal?
Not to test a drive. Octal runs the same tests: choose Test Drive Speed… on a volume in the sidebar and the test runs in the Activity panel. DriveBench adds a history of every test, and a closer look at a volume's capabilities. Open in DriveBench on a finished test opens it on the same drive. DriveBench doesn't need Octal installed.
Does a speed test wear out an SSD?
A test writes roughly the chosen test size, 5 GiB by default, and deletes it afterwards. That's a microscopic fraction of what an SSD is rated to write over its life. Fill disk writes until the drive is nearly full. That tests the sustained write speed of SSDs, which can slow down once their SLC cache is used up, and shows whether a drive can keep up with tasks such as continuous video recording.
What does DriveBench connect to?
Only the update check, which you can turn off in Settings ▸ Updates, and a problem report when you send one. A shared report image names an external drive by its model and a network share as “SMB Server”, never by your own volume name or path.
Using Octal
Is there a list of keyboard shortcuts?
Yes, in the docs: Keyboard shortcuts.
Why doesn't Reveal in Octal show up in Finder?
macOS turns new file services off until you enable them. See Reveal in Octal from Finder.
I found a bug, or I'd like a feature.
Use Help ▸ Report a Problem… in Octal or DriveBench, or the report form here. For anything else, email [email protected].