Peak  ·  Help

Getting Started with Peak

Peak scans iPhone backups for inappropriate content in your kid's messages. It runs entirely on your Mac. Nothing leaves your computer.

What you'll need

1. A Mac (macOS 14 Sonoma or later)
2. Your kid's iPhone (or an iPad — anything that backs up to this Mac)
3. A USB cable to connect them

First-time setup (one time, ~5 minutes)

1. Make a Finder backup of the phone

1. Plug the iPhone into your Mac
2. Open Finder → click the iPhone in the sidebar
3. Under Backups, choose "Back up all of the data on your iPhone to this Mac"
4. Leave "Encrypt local backup" OFF for the easiest first run. (If you have it on already, that's fine — see Working with Encrypted Backups.)
5. Click Back Up Now
6. Wait for it to finish — typically 5–30 minutes depending on phone size and how much you have

The status will show "Last backup to this Mac: Today at HH:MM" when done.

Want Apple's own step-by-step? See How to back up your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch with your Mac on Apple Support. Peak reads the backup that this process creates — it never makes the backup for you.

2. Point Peak at your backup folder

Peak reads files inside ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/. Because Peak is a sandboxed Mac App Store app, you grant access by selecting that folder yourself — Peak can't see anything you don't choose.

The short version:

1. The first time you open Peak, it shows "Choose your iPhone backup folder."
2. Click Choose Backup Folder… — the picker opens at the backup location
3. Select the Backup folder (or your specific device's backup inside it) and click Grant Access

That's it — macOS remembers your choice, so you won't be asked again. Detailed walkthrough: Choosing your backup folder.

3. Pick a thread to review

When Peak opens, you'll see:

• Left sidebar: the backups it found, sorted by most recent
• Middle column: the chat threads in the selected backup, sorted by most recent activity
• Right pane: the conversation viewer

Click a thread. The conversation opens in the right pane immediately — iMessage-style bubbles, inline photos and videos, reactions, replies. No files are written; nothing is uploaded.

4. Scan for flagged content (optional)

If you want a content review:

1. Tick the checkbox next to each thread you want to scan (or just one).
2. Click Scan selected in the chat-list header.
3. For the currently-viewed thread, a Findings sidebar appears next to the conversation. Each finding shows the matched terms highlighted, sender, timestamp, and category badges.
4. Click any finding to scroll the conversation to that message.

5. Export when you want to keep a copy

Nothing is saved to disk until you ask. In the Findings sidebar's Export ▾ menu:

• Forensic PDF… — the whole conversation as a printable, chain-of-custody PDF
• Review PDF + CSV… — just the flagged messages, with cross-document jumps into the forensic PDF
• Findings CSV… — just the data as a spreadsheet

Each option opens a file picker so you choose exactly where the file lives.

Updating to a newer backup

The phone changes constantly. To see what's been said since your last backup:

1. Plug the phone in again
2. Click Back Up Now in Finder
3. Open Peak. The newer backup automatically shows up at the top.

There's no "incremental" mode — every scan reads the whole thread. That's intentional. It's also what makes the output forensically accurate; nothing is interpreted relative to a prior state.

Common questions

• Does the kid know? That's up to you. Peak doesn't communicate anything to the phone. The backup is something Finder does normally. There's no Peak app on the phone.
• Can I scan WhatsApp / Snapchat / Instagram messages? Not in this version. Apple sandboxes those apps' data inside the iPhone backup. Peak only reads SMS/iMessage today. See Privacy & Security FAQ for what's in scope.
• Does Peak send anything online? No. Peak makes no network connections at all — the App Store handles updates. Reports stay on your Mac.
• What if a flagged message is a false positive? Many will be. The wordlist scanner can't tell "you have a fat ass" (locker-room joke) from "send me a pic of your ass" (concerning). The job of the report is to give you a queue to review with human judgment. See Tuning the Wordlist to silence categories you don't care about.

Next: Choosing your backup folder.