You can backup Mac to external hard drive with Time Machine and then restore them easily for later use. Some people may ask what does Time Machine backup. Actually, it can automatically back up everything on your Mac including music, photos, movies, documents, system files, applications, accounts, preferences, and email messages, etc.
- What Is Time Machine On Mac
- Access Time Machine Backups
- Best External Drive For Mac Time Machine Backup
- Free Mac Backup
- Mac Backup 10.4
With all that can go wrong, you want a simple and reliable way to back up your files and Mac preferences. Fortunately, Apple gave us one in the Mac Time Machine app. Introduced with OS X 10.5 Leopard, the Time Machine Mac backup app takes snapshots of your hard drive and stores them in the cloud or an external drive. While it does its job, it is not without fault. It is fine with simple tasks, but it can fail hard when dealing with something substantially more complex. If you do not want to take a chance with your data, you need to know how to backup your Mac to an external hard drive without Time Machine.
What is Time Machine on Mac?
Apple Time Machine backup utility makes incremental snapshots of your files so you can restore them later. You can use the application to backup and restore the whole system or just your important files. You can even use it with iWork, iLife, and many other applications to restore files without leaving those applications. You can even use Apple’s AirPort to store your backups on a network drive.
Time Machine saves your data every hour, though it keeps only the last backup made in a day. It then only keeps the daily backups for a month before just keeping weekly snapshots.
How to Use Time Machine on a Mac
Time Machine works best with the Apple Time Capsule, which is the combinations of the AirPort Base Station WiFi Router, and an external hard drive. However, you can use it with any hard disk connected to your computer via USB, FireWire, or Thunderbolt.
If you have OS X Yosemite or later, you can sit back and let Time Machine do the rest. The Yosemite version of Time Machine is on by default to create daily backups automatically through the Local Snapshots feature. Either way, you can tell the software what files and folders to include and exclude from the Time Machine Preferences.
Enabling Mac Time Machine Backups
- Select the Time Machine icon from the System Preferences Apple Menu.
- Click Select Backup Disk.
- Select which disk you’d like to use as a Time Machine backup.
- Check the Backup Automatically box.
Restoring Files From Time Machine
- Choose Time Machine from the System Preferences Apple Menu.
- Check “Show Time Machine in menu bar”.
- Click the Time Machine icon in the Menu bar.
- Find Your file or folder and click Restore.
You can set which files and folders to exclude in the Time Machine Options.
Restoring Data From Time Machine
You can restore your entire hard drive from Time Machine as well. If you still have access to the older hard drive, you just have to hold down the Command and R keys as your power on your computer to enter the macOS Recovery Partition. From there, you just select “Restore from Time Machine Backup” from the macOS Utilities screen, and follow the prompts.
However, holding down the Option key while booting your system is how to use Time Machine on Mac systems with fresh, empty, stock drives.
Problems with Mac Restoring from Time Machine
Time Machine is Apple’s preferred and only official Mac OS X backup system. However, it was created as a stopgap when Apple realized Mac users rarely backup their systems. It works, but it was created in 2006 and it shows. While every expert agrees every Mac user should use it, most say that you should never fully trust it either.
While Time Machine does its job most of the time, it has not kept pace with storage technology. There were occasional updates, but the application no longer meets modern operational needs.
For instance:
- Time Machine cannot create bootable backups. You can only restore damaged drives from the Time Machine archive.
- Time Machine only works well to backup your primary internal hard drive, and will fail for some external and network drives.
- Time Machine has no easily readable, user-accessible log file.
- Time Machine has no diagnostic or feedback system for checking the integrity of your backups.
How to Backup Mac to External Hard Drive Without Time Machine
Basically, when Time Machine fails, it fails spectacularly. Sure, you can use it to backup your files, but you should not be surprised to learn you might have corrupted backups when you try to recover them. With Time Machine, all you can do is start over from scratch at that point.
Fortunately, all is not lost. With a more robust backup and recovery solution such as CleverFiles Disk Drill, you would not have to worry whether or not your backup files are missing or corrupt. You can also use Disk Drill’s DMG Backup feature to ensure you are never in such situation as well.
Disk Drill’s Guaranteed Recovery feature digs through your deleted and corrupted files to give you a way to restore as needed. The tool utilizes several powerful scanning techniques to recover your files and ease your worries. Disk Drill can even work with failing drives. It is a great solution to all of your ongoing data protection needs.
DMG Backup lets you backup your system with or without Time Machine. You no longer have to rely on whether your Time Machine backup worked. You can just use our complete Time Machine alternative to protect your data from loss or failure.
The solution uses a byte-to-byte backup technique that makes backup files you can use with any Mac recovery solution including those that come with the operating system itself. Plus, you can even use them to recover from unstable storage devices ensuring that you can always get your files back whenever you need them.
Time Machine is a simple data recovery tool, and it is great at what it does. However, it can leave much to be desired on its own. You need Disk Drill’s data protection algorithms to take your data protection to the next level. Configured to work with Time Machine, Disk Drill will keep your data safe for as long as you need it.
Together, Disk Drill and Time Machine are one powerful data backup and recovery system for your Mac. That is why you need to download Disk Drill today so you can rest assured that your data will always be there. You can then check out our other storage management tools to keep your Macas clean and high performing as the day you first bought it.
Backing up the data on your computer is crucial. If you’re using a Mac, you’ll be glad to know there’s a built-in backup tool called Time Machine that makes backing up your computer easy.
Today we’ll show you how to set up a drive for use with Time Machine, how to set up and use Time Machine, and how to restore from a Time Machine backup.
Setting Up a Drive for Time Machine
For Time Machine backups, you can use an external hard drive connected to a USB, FireWire, or Thunderbolt port on your Mac. Backing up to a network drive also works.
For this overview, we’re going to use an external hard drive. You can dedicate the entire external hard drive to your backups. Or you can partition an external hard drivePartition & Use Your Time Machine Hard Drive To Store Files TooPartition & Use Your Time Machine Hard Drive To Store Files TooIf your Mac's hard drive is small and your Time Machine hard drive is big, it might be worth using the drive for both backup and storage purposes.Read More so you use part of it for Time Machine backups, and the rest of the drive for file storage.
Adding Time Machine to the Menu Bar
For easy access to Time Machine, add it to the menu bar on the desktop.
Go to Apple Menu > System Preferences > Time Machine. Then check the Show Time Machine in menu bar box.
What Is Time Machine On Mac
Choose Back Up Now to manually start a backup.
If you haven’t done a backup yet with Time Machine, the menu says Time Machine Not Configured. Select Open Time Machine Preferences to begin setting up your first backup.
Excluding Files/Folders From Time Machine Backups
Before starting your first backup, you should specify which files and folders should not be included in your backups. For example, you might have some large files or unimportant files and folders you don’t need to back up.
Select Open Time Machine Preferences from the Time Machine menu or by going to Apple Menu > System Preferences > Time Machine. Then click Options.
Click the Plus sign to add a drive, file, or folder to the Exclude these items from backups list.
The backup disk itself is automatically excluded, as well as any other external drives. The list of excluded items applies to all backup disks added to Time Machine (we discuss setting up multiple backup disks in the next section).
When you’re done adding items, click Save.
Backing Up Your Mac Using Time Machine
Once you’ve set up your drive, or when you connect a drive you’ve already set up, you might see a prompt asking if you want to use the connected disk to back up with Time Machine. If you partitioned the disk, select the partition you want to use from the dropdown list.
If your backup will contain sensitive data, you should encrypt the backupHow Does Encryption Work, and Is It Really Safe?How Does Encryption Work, and Is It Really Safe?Read More. To do this, check the Encrypt Backup Disk box. Encrypting the initial backup can take quite a long time. It could be hours or maybe a few days, depending on how many files you have.
Click Use as Backup Disk. The Time Machine Preferences dialog box opens and the backup process automatically starts.
Access Time Machine Backups
If Time Machine doesn’t ask you to choose a backup disk when you connect the drive to your Mac, select Open Time Machine Preferences from the Time Machine menu on the menu bar. Or go to Apple Menu > System Preferences > Time Machine.
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Click Select Backup Disk.
Time Machine lists all available connected disks that have enough free space. Click the disk you want to use.
You can choose to encrypt your backup here, if you didn’t see the dialog box mentioned above. Check the Encrypt backups box. Then click Use Disk.
Backing Up to Multiple Disks and Encrypting
Time Machine allows you to back up data to multiple disks. For example, if you keep one backup disk at home and another at work, you can add both to Time Machine. Simply click Select Backup Disk again in the Time Machine Preferences and select another disk.
Time Machine rotates the backup schedule among your disks and keeps track of the status of the backup on each separate disk. The next time you connect each disk, Time Machine backs up everything that changed since the last time you used that specific one.
If you chose to encrypt your backups, you’re next asked for a backup password. Enter your password in the Backup password box and again in the Verify password box.
You can also enter a hint to help you remember your password in the Password hint box. Click Encrypt Disk to proceed.
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Running Time Machine Backups
Once you’ve set up your backup, Time Machine starts preparing the backup and turns on automatic backups. The progress of the backup displays in the Time Machine Preferences.
If you don’t want to run automatic backups, uncheck the Back Up Automatically box in the Time Machine Preferences. The backup in progress stops.
When automatic backups are off, you can manually start a backup by opening the Time Machine menu on the menu bar and selecting Back Up Now from the menu (as discussed earlier).
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Your first backup may take a long time, depending on how many files you have. Once you’ve done the first backup, Time Machine backs up only the files that changed since the previous backup, so future backups will be faster.
Feel free to continue using your Mac while a backup is in progress.
You can also view the progress of the backup on the Time Machine menu.
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The Time Machine icon on the menu bar indicates when Time Machine is backing up, when it’s idle until the next automatic backup, or if it’s unable to complete the backup.
Time Machine uses notifications to keep you informed about the initial backup status. Best mac for music production 2015. It displays a notification after the first backup is complete, or if any issues arise during the initial backup.
Click Close to dismiss the notification.
When a backup finishes, Time Machine gives you information about your Oldest backup, your Latest backup, and when the Next backup takes place.
Pausing a Time Machine Backup
If you want to pause a backup and finish it later, select Skip This Backup from the Time Machine menu. Time Machine automatically tries to back up again at the Next backup time.
Restoring From a Time Machine Backup
Performing regular backups isn’t going to help if you can’t restore them. We’ve covered three ways to restore files from a Time Machine backupHow to Restore Data From Time Machine BackupsHow to Restore Data From Time Machine BackupsIt's really easy to set up Time Machine, the backup software that comes with every Mac — but how do you get your files back when things go wrong?Read More so you can always recover your files.
Using Local Snapshots in Time Machine
Local snapshots in Time Machine allow you to restore data even when your backup disk isn’t connected to your Mac.
Time Machine stores some backups as local snapshots on your main hard drive or other local drives. One snapshot saves every hour, if Time Machine is set to backup automatically. If you’re using macOS High Sierra, Time Machine also saves a snapshot before installing any update to macOS.
When you select Enter Time Machine from the Time Machine menu on the menu bar, you’ll see files from both your external backup and the hourly local snapshots on your Mac’s hard drive, if your external backup drive is connected to your Mac. If the backup drive is not connected, Time Machine shows you the local snapshots only.
Use the arrows on the right to scroll through versions of your selected file or folder. Then you can choose a version of a file or folder and click Restore to get that version of the item.
You can also perform additional tasks when you enter Time Machine, such as restoring individual files and folders. But the feature also works for deleting a version of or all versions of a backed-up item, getting information about an item, previewing an item using Quick Look, or copying an item.
Perform Regular Backups on Mac to Avoid Data Loss
Performing regular backups is critical to avoid losing data and Time Machine is a good, built-in backup option. But it’s not the only one available for Mac.
We’ve covered Mac backup solutions that aren’t Time Machine5 Local Mac Backup Solutions That Aren't Time Machine5 Local Mac Backup Solutions That Aren't Time MachineThere are lots of Mac backup options out there, and many of them have features that Apple's default backup app just can't compete with.Read More if you’re looking for something more robust.
Explore more about: Data Backup, Data Recovery, Mac Tips, Time Machine.
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I've just tried all the steps above. Fingers crossed it fixes my Macs boot up issues. Rebooted a few times to check and so far its good!
If you hear from me again you know its worked, if you don't.. Then my MacBook won't boot again! -
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