macOS forensic imager & triage collector

Collect from a live Mac. Defend every step.

Spectra MacCollect performs documented live triage and logical acquisition on a running Mac — a read-only snapshot, copied into a logical image, every action logged, and the whole evidence set cryptographically sealed.

SHA-256 · a3f1c0…9c20 · ✓ sealed
Spectra MacCollect running a live collection on a Mac

Live collection in progress — interface preview

Pricing & licensing

Simple, flat licensing

One annual license per collecting drive. Buy a configured drive ready to run, or bring your own.

MacCollect — 1 year

$500 / year

The Spectra MacCollect software license for one year, bound to your collecting drive. Includes updates, support, and continued macOS validation.

Purchase — $500
MacCollect with SSD — 1 year

$1,000 / first year

A ready-to-run external evidence drive (SSD) with the license pre-bound and partitions configured — license included. Plug in and collect; renews at $500/yr.

Buy with SSD — $1,000
MacCollect — renewal

$500 / year

Keeps your MacCollect license current with new macOS releases and tool updates. Renew before expiry to avoid interruption.

Renew — $500

Bring your own drive — the license binds to the drive's serial. A time-limited evaluation is available before purchase. See the full purchase flow →

The tool

Documented live triage — not a forensic image

Spectra MacCollect is built for forensic examiners who need to collect from a live, logged-in Mac and stand behind every step of how they did it. It takes a read-only, point-in-time snapshot of the subject's data, copies it into a logical image, and collects high-value artifacts for triage — producing a complete, hashed, self-verifying evidence set along the way.

The framing is deliberate and consistent: it performs documented live triage, not a forensic image of physical media. On modern Macs — particularly Apple Silicon and FileVault-encrypted systems — a traditional bit-for-bit image of the internal drive is often impossible to obtain. Spectra MacCollect is built for the collection that is actually achievable on a running machine, and documents its boundaries honestly.

The problem it solves

A live Mac can't be cleanly block-imaged

The boot volume is busy, and on Apple Silicon the physical image is generally unobtainable. Examiners are left collecting from a running system, where files are changing, some content is OS-protected, and some isn't even on the device. Done carelessly, that produces a collection that's hard to defend — no record of what was and wasn't captured, and no answer when opposing counsel asks "how do you know this is complete?"

So the record is the product

Spectra MacCollect freezes a consistent point in time, records every action it takes, seals the result so alteration is detectable, and produces an explicit, honest accounting of what it could not capture and why. The defensibility doesn't come from a claim — it comes from the evidence set the tool leaves behind.

How it works

Four steps, fully on the record

Snapshot

A read-only APFS local snapshot, mounted read-only. The source volume is never modified.

Image

The snapshot is copied into a logical sparse image, sized to the data and optionally AES-256 encrypted.

Triage

High-value artifact modules are collected from the same frozen snapshot as hashed raw archives plus parsed output.

Seal

The complete set is hashed and rooted by a terminal anchor — integrity is verifiable later with standard tools.

Read the full process
Key capabilities

Built around the pressure points of live collection

Live logical acquisition

Read-only snapshot, mounted read-only, copied into a logical image — the source is never touched.

Cloud-offload detection

A pre-collection scan flags files held off-device (consistent with iCloud "Optimize Mac Storage") before imaging.

Self-verifying seal

The whole evidence set is hashed and rooted by a terminal anchor, so tampering with any piece is detectable.

See all capabilities
On screen

Every phase, visible and timed

Sequential phase bars, a live console, and an elapsed timer show exactly where the collection is — pre-check, imaging, triage, close-out, and E01 conversion — with the content-hash fixity pass reading the full image before the seal is written.

Spectra MacCollect collection-in-progress screen
Collection in progress — Spectra MacCollect

Put a defensible collection on the record

Annual license, configured evidence drives, and bring-your-own-drive support.

View pricing & licensing