Troubleshooting

The most common issues, ordered by frequency.

"Full Disk Access is required"

macOS hides important folders unless the app has Full Disk Access. Open System Settings → Privacy & Security → Full Disk Access, add Storage Studio if missing, switch it on. Then quit and reopen Storage Studio — macOS only refreshes the permission on next launch.

"GNU rsync 3.x required"

The Mac ships with an older fork that Storage Studio can't safely rely on. Install GNU rsync via Homebrew:

brew install rsync

Then in Storage Studio click the Reload probe button on the banner. The path should now resolve to /opt/homebrew/bin/rsync (Apple silicon) or /usr/local/bin/rsync (Intel).

My external drive doesn't show in the picker

Make sure it's mounted in Finder.
The drive must be formatted as APFS, HFS+, or ExFAT. NTFS-only

drives are read-only on macOS and can't be the destination side.

Open the Inspect window to confirm Storage Studio sees the drive

at the system level.

License didn't activate

Double-check the email address matches your Stripe receipt

exactly. Aliases like +plus don't match.

Confirm you copied the full pi_… or sub_… identifier,

with no trailing space or quotes.

If you bought less than 60 seconds ago, the Stripe webhook may

not have arrived yet. Try again in 30 seconds.

The activation server is at

storagestudio.techtonic.systems — make sure your firewall isn't blocking it.

Offline grace period expired

Storage Studio works offline for up to 14 days after one successful validation. Beyond that you'll see a "couldn't validate license" banner. Reconnect to the internet and click Validate now in the License pane.

Still stuck?

Email hi@rajneeshmaurya.com with:

The version of Storage Studio (Preferences → About)
Your macOS version
What you tried
Any error message exactly as shown

We reply within one business day.