What's new

ACE Global Utilities is in beta — it works, and it is still being shaped. If something breaks, tell us at support@aceglobalpro.com.

1.10.20 — October 2026

The nightly backup now runs as ACE Global Utilities itself, so the permission you give the app to read a disk also covers the scheduled backup — and keeps working across app and tool updates.
If macOS is waiting for your permission, the nightly backup stops within a couple of minutes and the card says "Needs your OK", instead of waiting all night. A notification tells you whether macOS is waiting for you or has refused.
Backup cards show whether the app can read the disk, with a shortcut to Privacy & Security. "Back up now" checks disk access first, and you can cancel it.
If a schedule fails to start, the card says "Schedule not active — click to fix". If the app was moved, the card says so and the schedule is pointed at the app again.

1.10.18 — October 2026

Backup can encrypt before it uploads. A new Google Drive backup has "Encrypt before upload" switched on by default; names and contents are encrypted on your Mac, and the password is kept in your Mac's Keychain. Keep a copy of it somewhere safe: without it an encrypted backup cannot be restored.
Old versions: files changed or deleted since the last run are kept for 90 days by default (you can change this per backup, or keep them forever), then cleared.
A backup whose source folder is empty, or whose disk is not mounted, is skipped and says so, instead of mirroring an empty folder.
A backup that was interrupted no longer blocks every later run, and a passing Google Drive rate limit no longer fails the whole run.
Each backup can have its own skip list, edited in the backup itself.
Clearer backup cards: what the backup covers, what the last run actually sent, how long it took, which account it uses, and where the encrypted copy lives in Google Drive.

1.10.10 — September 2026

Backup now finds other scheduled jobs on your Mac that use one of its saved sign-ins. They appear on the Backup page as "Other Scheduled Jobs", with their schedule and last run.
Deleting a backup or unlinking an account names those jobs first and then offers to remove them too. Nothing is removed without your say-so, and nothing outside macOS's LaunchAgents folder is ever deleted.
After a removal the page shows what is really left: unloaded, schedule file removed, sign-in kept or removed, or exactly which job could not be removed and why.
The app's own schedule is removed the same careful way: the schedule file goes only once macOS has let go of the job, so a removed backup can no longer keep running in the background.

1.10.9 — September 2026

The app says Beta where it names itself: the window title, About, and the licence screen. It works, and it is still being shaped; if something breaks, tell us at support@aceglobalpro.com.
About has a Legal button. It opens the policy, the licence agreement, the privacy policy and the third-party notices in one window, the same way Aria does.
Settings is tidier. General no longer has a stray "About" section; Reset to defaults sits under Startup; Updates shows the automatic-checks switch, when the last check ran, and Check for Updates.
The Licence tab reads the way Aria's does: plan, key, how many Macs, and a clearly marked Deactivate.

1.10.8 — September 2026

Grab Text shows the image it read. Paste a screenshot with Cmd+V or drag a picture out of a browser — not only a chosen file — and the image appears beside the text it produced.
Words stay where they are on the page. Entries written side by side stay side by side, indents are kept, and a gap on the paper is a gap in the text — so handwritten notes and prescriptions read the way the paper does. A switch above the text gives the plain one-line-per-fragment list when that suits better, and remembers your choice.
When nothing could be read, Grab Text says so where you can see it, instead of a small line that was easy to miss.
Seven tools no longer forget their work when you click another tool and come back: Grab Text, Color, Metadata, Hashes, Password Generator, QR Code and Diff keep what you had.

1.10.7 — September 2026

The ACE Mac look. The whole app now shares one design with the other ACE apps: Dark by default, with a Light option in Settings if you prefer it. Every control sits at one height, and windows fill the space they are given instead of leaving it empty.
Destructive actions are quiet. Delete, unlink and clear no longer shout in red across the window — they stay where they are, plainly labelled, and ask before they act.
Subtitles from a file. Drop an audio or video file on Subtitles and get an .srt, in the original language, in English, or both. The language is detected from the speech itself, so a music intro no longer sends the whole file down the wrong path.
A live transcript while it works. The last few lines appear under the progress bar as they are decoded, with how far through the file it is and how long is left — and repeated lines are collapsed the same way the finished file does it.
A Speed choice for file subtitles: Faster (the default) or Best quality. Faster is about a quarter quicker; Best quality occasionally picks a different word and times lines more finely. Your choice is remembered.
Licence wording that stands on its own. The Pro screen and its messages describe this app's licence in plain terms, without leaning on a membership you may not have.
Open With housekeeping. Building and updating the app used to leave a trail of duplicate "ACE Global Utilities" entries in the Finder's Open With menu; the app's installer now tidies them away.

1.8.2 — August 2026

Downloaded videos now play in QuickTime. The app was saving files as .mp4 that QuickTime could not open, because the video inside used a newer codec Apple doesn't support. Downloads now use H.264 and AAC by default — the formats that play everywhere on a Mac and iPhone with nothing extra installed.
A new Video codec setting in Settings › Defaults. "Most compatible" is the default; "Highest quality" gets you 4K and other newer formats, which need VLC or IINA to play. The trade-off is spelled out next to the choice — YouTube only offers the compatible format up to 1080p.
In Highest quality mode, files are now named .webm or .mkv instead of .mp4, so a file never pretends to be something QuickTime can open.
Downloads are noticeably faster. YouTube slows down long single connections; the app now fetches in chunks, which measured about three and a half times quicker on the same file.

1.8.1 — August 2026

Fixes YouTube downloads failing with a "403 Forbidden" error. The cause was an out-of-date copy of the downloader engine on the Mac — YouTube changes often, and old copies get refused.
The Tools list now tells you when a tool is too old, instead of showing a green tick beside one that no longer works. Out-of-date tools get an amber warning and a one-click update — including tools installed by Homebrew, which previously offered no action at all.
Failed downloads now say what went wrong and what to do about it, rather than "yt-dlp exited with code 1".
Tools the app runs can now find their own helpers. Some downloads quietly lost the higher-quality formats because a helper program was invisible to the app.

1.8 — August 2026

Starting a backup while another is running now queues it. The card says "Waiting — starts when the current backup finishes", and it does, in order — even with the window closed. Cancel takes it back out of the line.
Pause means pause. Stopping the running backup also empties the queue, so pressing it actually stops all network activity — nothing sneaks in behind it.
Choose where in your account each backup lives. The destination folder — previously fixed and invisible — is now a field on the backup itself.
Two backups can no longer be pointed at the same account and folder. That setup would make each run erase the other's files; the app now refuses it when you save, and names the backup it would collide with.

1.7 — August 2026

Back up to more than one account on the same service. Two Google Drives, three Dropboxes — link as many as you have, name each one yourself ("GDRIVE — personal"), and pick which account every backup goes to.
Adding an account never touches the ones you already have. Existing backups, sign-ins and schedules keep working exactly as they were.
Unlink an account you no longer want on this Mac. You are told first, by name, which backups would stop running — and files already backed up stay in the cloud, untouched.
The live progress meter now survives the window. Close it mid-backup, reopen it, and the meter picks the run back up instead of going blank while the backup continues.

1.6 — August 2026

A scheduled backup can no longer fail silently. If a run fails — or hangs past four hours — it is stopped, you get a notification, and the app shows it in red the next time you look.
Live progress that says what is actually happening: listing files, checking what's changed, or uploading — with file counts, speed in both bytes and files per second, and the file currently in flight.
A stall warning. If nothing has moved for five minutes, the app says "possibly stalled" instead of letting "running" cover a frozen connection.
Hardened connections: a hung transfer now times out and retries on its own instead of freezing the whole run.
Scheduled backups show their progress in the app while they run, and their outcome after — even when the run happened overnight with the app closed.

1.5 — August 2026

Back up only the folders you choose. A drive with nine folders on it no longer has to be backed up whole or not at all — tick the ones that matter, and see what each would upload before you commit to it.
The skip list is editable in the app. "Edit skip list…" opens the actual list of what is left out, with a note when newer default rules are available to add.
Virtual machine disks, disk images and installers are skipped by default. A VM disk reports its full size even when mostly empty — one 128 GB disk file can occupy 35 GB and still cost a 128 GB upload.
Backup now suggests what else is worth leaving out — AI model weights, installers, built applications — with the exact saving measured on your own folder, and adds the rule for you in one click.
Sizes are honest about the difference between what a file occupies and what it costs to upload, and say which is which when the two disagree.
Everything skipped is named. Nothing is left out quietly.

1.4 — August 2026

Choose where speech models are stored. Models are half a gigabyte to over a gigabyte each — keep them on an external drive instead of your startup disk. Settings › Tools › Models folder.
Choose which speech model Subtitles uses, or leave it on Automatic. The app now tells you which one it picked and why, instead of deciding silently.
English subtitles always use a model that can actually translate. Large v3 Turbo produces text in the original language only; it is no longer chosen for English by mistake, and the app says so if you pick it yourself.
Tool and model downloads are far faster. A flaw in the downloader made large files crawl regardless of connection speed.
Live captions say up front how far behind speech they will run, rather than leaving you to work it out.
If the drive holding your models is disconnected, the app says so instead of offering to download them all over again.

1.3 — August 2026

First notarized release — signed with a Developer ID and stapled; macOS opens it without warnings.
One unified Download page: video, audio and direct downloads in a single flow.
Live Subtitles: on-device transcription of any audio playing on the Mac.
Text workspace: selection-aware transforms, identifier case styles.
Pro licensing: one payment, two Macs, a year of updates.