AOMEI Backupper Standard v4.6.3

A Full Review of AOMEI Backupper Standard, a Free Backup Software Program

Screenshot of AOMEI Backupper v3.0 in Windows 7
AOMEI Backupper.
by Tim Fisher
Tim Fisher has 30+ years' professional technology support experience. He writes troubleshooting content and is the General Manager of Lifewire.
Updated April 01, 2019

AOMEI Backupper Standard is free backup software that supports backing up files and folders, hard drives, and even the system partition.

The program interface is probably the easiest I've used in a backup program even though I'd consider AOMEI Backupper pretty advanced.

This review is of AOMEI Backupper v4.6.3. Please let me know if there's a newer version I need to review.

AOMEI Backupper: Methods, Sources, & Destinations

The types of backup supported, as well as what on your computer can be selected for backup and where it can be backed up to, are the most important aspects to consider when choosing a backup software program. Here's that information for AOMEI Backupper:

Supported Backup Methods:

Full backup, incremental backup, and differential backup are supported in AOMEI Backupper.

Supported Backup Sources:

AOMEI Backupper is able to backup individual partitions, specific files, and folders, or an entire hard drive.

Even the partition that Windows is installed to can be backed up with AOMEI Backupper. This works by using the Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS), which allows a backup to run without having to shut down the computer or close open files.

Supported Backup Destinations:

A backup is created as an AFI file and can be saved to a local drive, network folder, or external drive.

If you're performing a partition or disk clone instead of a regular backup, the only destinations available, of course, are another partition or hard drive.

More About AOMEI Backupper

  • AOMEI Backupper can be installed on 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows 10, Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows Vista, and Windows XP
  • Can be installed on an unlimited number of computers in a commercial or home setting
  • You can exclude custom subfolders and file types from a backup using wildcards
  • A backup can be encrypted and password protected
  • You can quickly exclude hidden files, subfolders, and/or system files from being included in a backup
  • Managing backup jobs is simple because you can view jobs created today, this week, or any other custom date
  • When creating a partition or hard drive backup, you can choose to backup only the actual data or make an exact copy by including unused sectors as well
  • It's easy to run a full, differential, or incremental backup on an existing job in just a couple clicks
  • Backups can be restored with ease because you can clearly see the date and backup method used before starting a restore
  • AOMEI Backupper is able to restore certain files or an entire backup to any location, including the original folder
  • The AOMEI Centralized Backupper (ACB) tool is supported so that you can use one computer on a network to start, schedule, start, and monitor backup jobs on the computers that are running AOMEI Backupper
  • Scheduling backups work with any backup method and source, even for the system partition
  • Email notifications are supported, which means you can receive an email after a backup has completed successfully and/or when it fails, which includes information about when the backup started and stopped, the path of the backup, and any error messages
  • A backup can be scheduled to run daily, weekly, monthly, or on daily intervals
  • USB devices can be backed up automatically when plugged in
  • A system image backup can be restored to a different computer with different hardware. Read more about this procedure at AOMEI's website
  • Backups created with AOMEI Backupper can optionally be compressed with a normal or high compression level
  • Can automatically restart, hibernate, or shutdown after a backup task has completed
  • Supports command line cloning and restoring 
  • Comments can be added to backups to give more information about what's included or what the backup is used for
  • A backup can be split into smaller pieces for easier storage using a custom size or a predetermined one, like 700 MB for a CD or 4 GB for a DVD
  • A bootable disc can be created to use AOMEI Backupper for restoring a backup or cloning a partition/hard drive without booting into Windows
  • While running a backup, if AOMEI Backupper finds that the destination doesn't have enough disk space to hold the files, it will prompt you to clean up the drive and then continue with the backup
  • A Linux bootable disc lets you restore data from a backup and clone partition/disks to other drives, though backing up a partition, disk, or system drive isn't allowed

My Thoughts on AOMEI Backupper

AOMEI Backupper should definitely be a contender when choosing a good backup program. The interface is easy to work with for anyone and it's packed full of great features.

What I Like:

Although AOMEI Backupper is pretty advanced, I like how simple it is to use. I didn't run across any settings or features that left me wondering what it did or how to use it.

I also like that you can set up the system partition to be backed up on a schedule. Couple this with the Volume Shadow Copy support and you can keep your Windows partition backed up without any issues.

What I Don't Like:

When restoring files from a backup, the window you're browsing in can't be resized, which makes for a rather small area to use for selecting what to restore.

Also, the original folder structure remains intact when restoring to a custom folder. There aren't any settings or options available to change this, which is a bit unfortunate.

I also don't like that AOMEI Backupper is unable to pause a backup. You're able to cancel a backup in progress but having the option to simply pause it would be nice.

More advanced features like merging incremental backups and using batch scripts to run a backup, are available in the commercial version of AOMEI Backupper.