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HELP pretty please! I desperately need help backing up an application that will be retiring/ending soon (if this is possible!)

P

pleasehelpanewbtoday

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 2, 2023
2
0
Okay so I am level brand new on what I am trying to explain so please be kind.

So I use an App on my MacBook called Snap Camera (its a fun filter app basically like SnapChat but not on mobile its for Macs/Windows that uses webcam etc)

Snap Camera made an announcement stating "On January 25, 2023, Snap Camera will no longer be available to use or download."

Which is terrible as I use it daily for streaming etc. I found on Twitter a guy found a way to cache/back it up (again not sure if these are even the correct terms) on Windows and I am wondering if this is possible to do on the Mac OS.

Here is his Twitter link on how he does it via Windows:
https://twitter.com/x/status/1609649915763859458

Is there anyway for me to do it similar on a MacBook? If so please be my internet hero for life and teach me how! Or do I need to get myself a Microsoft machine....???!!!
 
Snap Camera 1.21.0.pkg

Well, if you haven't already, you can download the installer again with the link above and back that up somewhere.

To stop the app from talking to Snap, you can't do that with the macOS firewall as you can only use it to block incoming connections, not outgoing ones. You can use Lulu for that: https://objective-see.org/products/lulu.html (Assuming you've not got Little Snitch or something like that installed?)
 
Thank you.
I download Lulu, how do I go about blocking the connection to the back up one when I do download it etc.

When I click the link to the Snap Camera pkg it takes me to a page stating:
"This XML file does not appear to have any style information associated with it. The document tree is shown below.
<Error>
<Code>ExpiredToken</Code>
<Message>The provided token has expired.</Message>
<Details>Request signature expired at: 2023-01-02T22:34:43+00:00</Details>
</Error>"

I really wish I wasnt such a newb on this so I could use your advice/knowledge without asking dumb questions but here I am regardless so:
1. How do I access the Snap Camera link you provided without getting the error code.
2. Once I do, how do I back it up exactly? I have cloud server etc can I do it there? (I never done a back up except via iPhone into iTunes forever ago)
3. Once I am able to access the Snap Camera link you provided above and I go into Lulu I may have more questions. But I just want you to know this internet stranger appreciates your help a lot.
 
Don't worry, it's all good! :)

Yeah, the link is broken for me too - guess it timed out! You can go straight to the download page here:

https://snapcamera.snapchat.com/download/

And grab it again.

For backing up the Snap installer Disk Image, wherever you like! iCloud, DropBox, Memory Stick - as long as you remember where you put it if you need to install it again!

With Lulu, once you've installed it.... start Snap Camera and Lulu should see that it's trying to contact Snap, at that point you should deny the request and that'll create a rule to block it. In theory.
 
Hopefully you are looking for a supported app replacement. The clock is ticking and future OS updates may make it unusable. The time spent on workarounds to get discontinued apps to work at some point often makes it not worth the trouble.
 
Well, if you go to Finder and then the 'Applications folder' you should find the Snap Camera .app.
In order to back it up all you need to do is copy the app you find there.
Apps don't really install on the Mac in the same way as they do on Windows. I have many times in the past, tried an app from the download folder, copied it across etc and used it on a new machine and to delete them all you need to do it drag the app to the bin.
However, I can't absolutely guarantee it'll work or work forever. If it asks you to you log in and permission to install then it really does install and then the rules are different (although I'm always much more wary about anything that asks me for my log in to install ) and of course it may need to connect to something exterior to work or is may not work with a future update etc and particularly if they say it won't be available to use then maybe they are going to disable it somehow (or make it illegal to use).
But in the first instance, just copy the app you find in the applications file and with a bit of luck, it'll work for ages.
 
Snap Camera uses a full installer (it's not drag and drop) so you'll most likely be missing the drivers that let you use the filters with a live camera stream if you just back up the App from Applications.
 
Ruggy said:
Well, if you go to Finder and then the 'Applications folder' you should find the Snap Camera .app.
In order to back it up all you need to do is copy the app you find there.
Apps don't really install on the Mac in the same way as they do on Windows.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I'm familiar with how that works. But I don't have it installed yet at all.

HDFan said:
Hopefully you are looking for a supported app replacement. The clock is ticking and future OS updates may make it unusable. The time spent on workarounds to get discontinued apps to work at some point often makes it not worth the trouble.
Click to expand...

Absolutely. I did a bit of research before setting on this solution. The available alternatives appear to be less capable, outside my budget (for a project that may or may not bear fruit), or not likely to be performant on the hardware I have. It does look like the discontinuation of Snap Camera is inspiring a bunch of people to develop replacements, but it'll probably be a year or two before those are mature. If there's an alternative you're using, I'd love to hear about it, though!

bogdanw said:
Upload it to VirusTotal https://www.virustotal.com/gui/home/upload
Click to expand...

Ooh, I wasn't familiar with that. Thank you!
 
Ah, the virus scanner thing doesn't actually scan for viruses. It just checks the checksum against databases of previously identified malware.

I'd feel safer after checking the checksum against a known good copy of the installer file, instead.
 
splitpea said:
Ah, the virus scanner thing doesn't actually scan for viruses. It just checks the checksum against databases of previously identified malware.

I'd feel safer after checking the checksum against a known good copy of the installer file, instead.
Click to expand...
Yes, it does. If it was previously uploaded by someone else, you can trigger a rescan.
 
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