Carbonite Reviews 3.085

Backup works great. Restore is broken. Which means it's really hard and painful to recover your files when you want them. I just spent a half hour on the phone with the Carbonite support rep.
If you are trying to access your files from Windows to Mac or vice versa, you'll have to download them bit by bit, rather than all at once.
If you are trying to download a bunch of your files and some of them happen to be empty files, the downloaded ZIP file Carbonite gives you will be invalid.
If you want to go folder by folder, looking through your files on their website to recover the important ones, and pick out the empty files to remove them from the list of files to be downloaded, you have more patience than me!
Oh, and the rep stressed to me that although the Carbonite download function says it can handle up to 5000 files at once, "smaller downloads are better!" "Can't stress this enough, smaller downloads are better!" "And if you have any ongoing problems with your downloads, please reply to my email and we'll spend the time to go through it and be sure that the website is working for you. And if it's still not working, we'll escalate to Tier 3 support."

So backup is working (?? Maybe?? How would anyone know??!). Restore is broken, at Carbonite, and they won't fix it but they will happily spend your time on support calls to identify their bugs and find workarounds.

So how much time do you have for this? Or you can just pay them $99 for them to ship you a hard drive with your files on it. Yep, going for that, and then cancelling this awful service and hoping to never to do business with them again!

Renewed my subscription without my approval. Not only that, they charged me for some stuff that I didn't even know what it was.

Carbonite signed us up for a service we did NOT authorize. We called the next day and told them they slammed us for this service. They did NOT credit us for the full amount charged because they said we used the service for 1 day even though it was their error. This is just stealing. When I spoke to the customer service person she just didn't care.

Within the first several months of using the program, my computer contracted a virus. Carbonite is not clear with their terms and conditions around the auto-renewal process. Even after I had tried to cancel my account online, I was still charged. My debit card had even expired and the payments somehow went through once I was issued a new card. I had not authorized payment on the new card. When I called customer service, they told me there was nothing they could do.

I was forced to start working with Carbonite when they merged with Webroot. While before in Webroot I could simply tell the software what folders I would like to backup and all files in those folders would be backed up. With Carbonite this is not possible. They exclude a lot of files with extensions, such as .exe .dll .ini, font files, temporary backup files, etc.

I contacted the support department a couple of times asking if it really is not possible to simply backup all files in a folder, but each time got a more or less standard reply telling me that certain file types will not be backed up, but you can still add them manually.

When my WD passport drive crashed in October of 2022, I learned my Carbonite files had not been backed up since September of 2021.

Their customer service department said that it had tried to contact me by e-mail. But I get a blizzard of sales e-blasts from Carbonite at a rate of seven a month…that’s every three business days. One of the seven was the Monthly Alert…which looks like just another offer.

When I contacted Carbonite, the company took no responsibility for their irresponsibility.

I am now faced with the prospect of having to pay almost $ 2,000 to recover the data from my WD Passport that I was paying Carbonite to protect.

Paid for a new subscription but licence has not updated & no licence code issued. No support available to fix it.

Web messaging does not work
UK phone number does not work
Facebook Messenger - automated response - nothing else
Email support - no response

If they can't be contacted for a simple account query what happens if I have a major issue?

We have been Carbonite customers for over five years.Their back up has been clunky.
Several weeks ago Carbonite accepted my payments for two back-up renewals, way before they expired.
Despite on-screen confirmations, nothing happened.
On 3rd January I telephoned and spoke at length to a customer support bod who took all of the details and promised to sort and update within a day or so.
Nothing happened.
I have now sent four further emails, detailng the problems.
I have now lost my back-up and I am still awaiting any comment from the company.
Carbonite could improve by following up the cases - 02454677; 023454338; 02463265; 02466023; 02466022.
Telephoning me would be a good start.

17th February, and l have had a response to my review of 16th January saying that their team would be happy to help.
That says it all, really.

Non-Existent Support

Purchased the basic product. Had to upgrade to be able to backup my NAS. Upgrade wouldn’t allow me to connect the NAS - tried in vain for hours to contact support. Sent around in circles online - finally got a UK support number - called it twice - nobody answers and after 15 rings the line goes dead. Called back, asked for an Operator “Sorry - this number does not answer”. Finally gave up, deinstalled the app and I will request a refund within the 30 day purchase period. I do not recommend this app at all.

The version of Carbonite I have on my laptop keeps disabling and I have to constantly monitor it to keep it enabled. Very frustrating.

I would not recommend Carbonite to anyone. Has there been a (unannounced) change of ownership?

The price increases are completely ridiculous to my memberships. I have multiple devices and $83.99 for Safe Basic is too much. I am looking for another vendor.

I've been paying for years to back up my computer with Carbonite and the company I believe they acquired. My computer overheated and no longer boots up - this was the first time I needed their service to restore my files. It doesn't work. I've tried all manner of approaches. Nothing works. The customer service team don't answer the phone so I emailed. They replied after several days and gave me a stock response with instructions that still don't work. I emailed again just over a week ago. No response.

I have paid for years for a service that doesn't do what it claims. Total rubbish. Don't use Carbonite Backup.

I have paid for carbonite for years to back up my computer. My computer broke and it was the one time I needed their service to restore all my files - They began the resoration and after a week it stopped with nothing restored. They are not available after hours or on weekends for tech support, which is something they decided when bought out by WebRoot. I went to the Apple store and they restored my files to my new computer in 12 hours!
Buyer beware - they are a rip off and do not provide the service they are selling.

Carbonite Safe Pro customer
Have a number of machines and a NAS to backup. The individual machines is fine, but the backup of the NAS is terrible - very slow and not useful. Support is poor. Constantly redirect to the knowledge base. No chat available.

You billed the wrong credit card and your support site has NO WAY to actually contact a human being. That is horrible customer support. How do I get this fixed?!?

I needed to restore all my files from a dying computer to a new computer. The website was not helpful. Used their email link and didn't get a response for a number of days, maybe 4 or 5. Resorted to using dropbox to move thr files. Before trashing the old computer, deleted everything. After a few days, I just discovered that I did not successfully transfer all my needed files. Had to call carbonite with a phone number that fortunately was sent to me as a response to my first email. Talk to a guy who is very good and restored the file that I wanted. After a few more days I realized that maybe there were more files that weren't transferred successfully through dropbox, so I called again and the queue was 14 minutes, so they said they would call back. They called back, told me to press one, and then the call got dropped. This was on my landline, so it was not a cell phone drop. I called again and waited 25 minutes on hold until a very nice guy answered my call and took over my computer and got the backup started. Except, there was no indication that backup had started. So I had to re-download the executable file a couple of times and finally got the backup started. Immediately it said it was 99% complete. But it showed that 35,000 files out of 220 files had been restored and it was still working. But 99% was totally wrong I'm going to switch out of carbonite. It is just not worth it.

Carbonite did not back up Outlook files and I lost YEARS of unreplaceable data. Carbonite did NOTHING to resolve this after multiple requests working with off shore non-native English speakers who would not escalate my issue. I hired a tech, paid hundreds of dollars (about $1500) over multiple sessions and my files were never rerecovered. If you value your Outlook data, do not use Carbonite. Very very very disappointed.

BUYER BEWARE! I have used Carbonite for numerous years and on several computers. My original subscription included a "Mirror Image" of my hard-drive, which I thought it was necessary considering the type of work that I do. About 6 months ago, I called them to transfer my service to a new laptop. I found out that the "Mirror Image" was no longer offered with my subscription since, I believe, 2018 when they were bought by another company. I looked for another provider, and transferred my service to the new provider that included the "Mirror Image" for a reasonable fee. After making sure that all my files were backed up, I called Carbonite to cancel the service and get a refund for the balance of the months that I had pre-paid. Now they tell me that they do not give REFUNDS. If that's not a way to steal by deceiving the consumer, I am not sure what is. You have 30 days to cancel. This they don't tell you when you pay in advance. Now I have a subscription that I will not be using until 2025. PLEASE BEWARE OF THIS MALICIOUS BUSINESS PRACTICES. There are other providers that charges reasonable fees.

I paid in advance for several years. A month later Carbonite quit working on my operating system. Customer service just said: Too bad, no refunds. Sucks to be you. So I switched to IDrive. It works! IDrive also backs up external drives for no additional charge. Carbonite, you owe me for two years of non-service. I hate to get ripped off.