For those who don't want a technical setup to backup their Mac, Time Machine is a. Backblaze integrates very well with macOS, more so than most other backup services out there (of which there are plenty). There's not even an app to manage, as it will install to a preferences pane in your settings. It's incredibly easy to set up and manage even for the inexperienced user.
You can use Time Machine, the built-in backup feature of your Mac, to automatically back up all of your files, including apps, music, photos, email, documents, and system files. When you have a backup, you can restore files from your backup if the original files are ever deleted from your Mac, or the hard disk (or SSD) in your Mac is erased or replaced.
Sep 23, 2020 How to Backup Your Mac with Time Machine. Connect the external storage device to your Mac. Apple macos shortcuts. You will see a window asking you to use this drive to back up with Time Machine. Check the box for Encrypt Backup Disk. Then click Use as Backup Disk. So without further ado, let's have a look at some of the finest options that can create a backup of your Mac with ease. For those who don't want a technical setup to backup their Mac, Time Machine is a perfect choice. This software comes with your Mac operating system itself, and it works flawlessly without any interruptions. A Time Machine backup includes absolutely everything on your Mac: photos, documents, user preferences, and third-party apps. If you replace your Mac, change the hard drive, or wipe it clean, it's easy to restore a Time Machine backup and recover every piece of data you lost.
Create a Time Machine backup
To create backups with Time Machine, all you need is an external storage device. After you connect the device and select it as your backup disk, Time Machine automatically makes hourly backups for the past 24 hours, daily backups for the past month, and weekly backups for all previous months. The oldest backups are deleted when your backup disk is full.
Connect an external storage device
Connect one of the following external storage devices, sold separately. Learn more about backup disks that you can use with Time Machine.
How To Use Apple Time Machine
- External drive connected to your Mac, such as a USB, Thunderbolt, or FireWire drive
- External drive connected to an AirPort Extreme Base Station (802.11ac model) or AirPort Time Capsule
- AirPort Time Capsule
- Mac shared as a Time Machine backup destination
- Network-attached storage (NAS) device that supports Time Machine over SMB
Select your storage device as the backup disk
When you connect an external drive directly to your Mac, you might be asked if you want to use the drive to back up with Time Machine. Select Encrypt Backup Disk (recommended), then click Use as Backup Disk.
An encrypted backup is accessible only to users with the password. Learn more about keeping your backup disk secure.
If Time Machine doesn't ask to use your drive, follow these steps to add it manually:
- Open Time Machine preferences from the Time Machine menu in the menu bar. Or choose Apple () menu > System Preferences, then click Time Machine.
- Click Select Backup Disk (or Select Disk, or Add or Remove Backup Disk):
- Select your external drive from the list of available disks. Then select 'Encrypt backups' (recommended) and click Use Disk:
If the disk you selected isn't formatted as required by Time Machine, you're prompted to erase the disk first. Click Erase to proceed. This erases all information on the backup disk.
Enjoy the convenience of automatic backups
After you select a backup disk, Time Machine immediately begins making periodic backups—automatically and without further action by you. The first backup may take a long time, depending on how many files you have, but you can continue using your Mac while a backup is underway. Time Machine backs up only the files that changed since the previous backup, so future backups will be faster. Mac select screen capture. Mac word processor built in.
To start a backup manually, choose Back Up Now from the Time Machine menu in the menu bar. Use the same menu to check the status of a backup or skip a backup in progress.
Learn more
- If you back up to multiple disks, you can switch disks before entering Time Machine. Press and hold the Option key, then choose Browse Other Backup Disks from the Time Machine menu.
- To exclude items from your backup, open Time Machine preferences, click Options, then click the Add (+) button to add an item to be excluded. To stop excluding an item, such as an external hard drive, select the item and click the Remove (–) button.
- If using Time Machine to back up to a network disk, you can verify those backups to make sure they're in good condition. Press and hold Option, then choose Verify Backups from the Time Machine menu.
- In OS X Lion v10.7.3 or later, you can start up from your Time Machine disk, if necessary. Press and hold Option as your Mac starts up. When you see the Startup Manager screen, choose 'EFI Boot' as the startup disk.
You see it happen all the time.
Bill: Oh man, you look panicked. Unzip protected zip file mac. What happened?
Stephen: My hard drive failed Monday night. I lost everything. Pictures, emails, my resume…
Bill: You didn't have it backed up?
Stephen: Nope.
Most of the time people aren't prepared for their hard drive to fail, and most of the time they lose everything. To avoid being the next Stephen, follow the steps below to back up your computer.
Buy a Backup Hard Drive
One of the difficulties of making backups is that those backups take up a lot of space on your computer. In order to have enough room to back up your computer, you might want to buy an external hard drive. Don't worry though, an external hard drive on Amazon.com with one terabyte of space runs for less than $100.00. To give you an idea of the massive size of a one terabyte hard drive consider this: a one terabyte hard drive will hold up to 200,000 pictures or up to 250,000 songs. Here are a couple of places you can buy an external hard drive for a good price:
Backup a Windows 7 Computer
Here's how to back up your Windows 7 computer.
- Plug-in your external hard drive to your computer.
- Double click on Computer. A list of drives will open up in a separate window.
- Right-click on your main hard drive and click 'Properties'.
- Click the 'Tools' tab at the top.
- Click 'Back up now…'.
- Under the window 'Back up or restore your files' click 'Set up backup'.
- Click your backup drive in the 'Select where you want to save your backup' window and click Next. If you have an external hard drive you would select that here.
- Windows will ask what you want to back up. Picking 'Let Windows choose' will work fine for most people. If you prefer more control you can choose your folders by picking 'Let me choose'.
- Under 'How often do you want to back up?' schedule the backup frequency. For someone who's files are a matter of life or death you can schedule for every day. For others, once a week should suffice.
- Click 'OK' and your first back up should begin. You may notice the first backup takes a long time. Don't worry because after the first backup Windows will only backup files that have changed and will be much faster. Once you see your first backup start you are good to go.
Backup a Mac OS X Computer
Here's how to back up your Mac OS X computer.
- Plug in your external hard drive to your computer.
- A popup will appear asking if you want to use this backup with time machine. Click 'Use as Backup Disk'. If for some reason a popup doesn't open go to System Preferences >> Time Machine and click 'Select Disk…' to choose your external hard drive.
- That's it. Time Machine will now take hourly backups for the last 24 hours, daily backups for the last month, and weekly backups until your external hard drive is full. When this happens Time Machine will start deleting your oldest backups to make room for new ones. Also, just like Windows, the first backup may take a while, but subsequent backups will be much faster.
Backup Imac To Cloud
*Note: Time Machine does offer some options for customizing your backups. If you want to exclude files or include an additional hard drive go to System Preferences >> Time Machine and click 'Options'.
I know some people have operating systems other than Windows 7 and Mac OS X. Here is an article to help you if you have a different operating system.
Best Backup System For Mac
Do you have any other tips to help people backup their files? Have you ever lost everything to a failed hard drive? Let us know in the comments.
Resources
How to Use Backup and Restore in Windows 7
Mac 101: Time Machine
How to Backup and Restore Your Mac Using Time Machine
Images courtesy of Wikipedia and IconArchive
