Genie9 has released Genie Timeline 2013, the latest edition of its easy-to-use backup tool. As previously, the program is available in three editions – Genie Timeline Free 2013, Genie Timeline Home 2013 ($39.95) and Genie Timeline Professional 2013 ($59.95) – and all of these gain plenty of features in the new release.

This starts with the new protection level, for instance. This will immediately highlight any problems – lots of file changes which haven’t been backed up, say, or you’ve run out of free space on the destination drive – giving you a quick and easy view of your backup status.

All three editions also offer you more restore features. You can search old backups for a particular file name, for instance, or filter the restore view to show new, modified or deleted files.

Genie Timeline 2013 appears much the same, but look closer and there are plenty of improvements

Genie Timeline Home 2013 also gains an enhanced disaster recovery engine, as well as the ability to strip deleted files out of your backup.

As you’d expect, Genie Timeline Professional 2013 has even more. The program now has include and exclude filters, for instance (with regular expression support). You can actually decide when to turn turbo mode on, if you’re in a hurry. The backup folder name can now include a user and computer name, for easier identification, while new low-level options mean you can choose a delayed start for the Genie Timeline service.

And all three versions have a revamped interface, which is now looking more Windows 8-like than ever.

The end result is a solid, if not revolutionary change for Genie Timeline Free 2013 and Genie Timeline Home 2013. The restore view filtering is welcome, though, while the include and exclude filters are a great addition to Genie Timeline Professional 2013, and on balance Timeline remains a capable and effective backup tool.