Zoolz Intelligent Home Review

Pros:

• 5GB of free backup space.
• App appear easy to use.
• Applications for Windows, Mac, Android and iOS.

Cons:

• Could not get the Windows application to actually back anything up.
• To many different products can be confusing. Do you need Zoolz Intelligent for Home or Zoolz Cloud Archive? Makes things messy.
• Larger accounts are more expensive than other services.

I routinely see specials for Zoolz and it got me curious about the service and what they offer. They certainly have a decently priced offer offering a 5GB plan for personal use for free with paid plans starting at 100GB for 3 computers and one user at $2.99 / month that you need to pay a year in advance. You can tell the marketing department made sure they list the price as a monthly price instead of just listing it as a yearly price, but whatever, a little quick math and you are looking at $36.00/year for the basic plan. Not a huge investment. 100GB is not much these days so if you do need more the 500GB plan is $6.99 / month and the 1TB plan is $12.99 month. Compared to other backup services the prices are a little higher but not unacceptable. Certainly the fact that you can use the service to backup more than one computer on one plan does give you some options. They also offer apps for several platforms including Windows, Mac, Android and iOS.

Windows Desktop App

I went and created an account on the Zoolz website and downloaded the Zoolz Intelligent Home backup software for Windows. After the download I tried opening, but did have some trouble installing the software. Eventually I did get it installed and was able to setup a backup job. Not sure what the problem was initially getting the Windows application setup but once I got it installed things seemed to work fine.

I was able to login, and using the wizard was able to select file types for backup, set a backup schedule and the application then proceeded to backup the files that I had selected. Except it did not. I said it backed up the files but after checking on the Zoolz website, and trying a restore it was clear NOTHING had been backed up. I tried backing up files from the Windows computer several times over the next few days and despite the application saying the backup was complete, it had never backed up a single file from the Windows computer. After several days of trying I just simply gave up and removed the application from my Windows test machine.

I was able to test a restore because the Android app that I tried was able to successfully backup to the service and I was able to restore those files to my Windows test computer.

Android App

The Android app worked better than the Windows application I will say that. Installing from the Play store I had no problems installing, logging in and using the app. The only problem I had was not directly related to the app was I not able to record my using the app. Problems with screen overlays, but when I turned my screen recorder off I had no problems backing up photos and videos from my Android phone to my account. If you are looking for a relatively easy backup service for your Android device I would recommend you give Zoolz a try.

Overall

I would not recommend Zoolz to use to keep your data backed up. The fact that I could not get my desktop testing computer to backup at all over several days shows it is not a reliable system. The Android app fared better in my testing and seemed to work as expected. If you only want or need to backup photos from your Android, Google Photos does it better for free than Zoolz does. I would recommend sticking with Google Photos than using Zoolz. If the desktop app worked as expected along with the Android app then perhaps it Zoolz would be worth looking into paying for. As it is Zoolz is just not worth it.

Video

Here is the video of my initial test of Zoolz Intelligent Home backup on my Windows 10 test machine. You might have to skip through parts since I did not edit out the portions when I had problems getting the application installed.