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.
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.
Oct 22, 2017 I'm looking for a Time Machine survival guide. I am using a 1 TB hard disk (connected via USB) to back up my 512 GB MacBook Pro (mid-2014 Retina 15' running the most up-to-date version of Sierra). Of course, that disk is slowly getting full (although I only back up - manually - about once a day) - there are about 40 GB room left. Apr 08, 2019 Time Machine is the built-in backup solution in macOS, automatically making backups of your Mac onto an external drive. It's easy to set up, and after that, you don't even need to worry about it. But if you want to customize your experience to fit more particular needs or use cases, you absolutely.
- 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.
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.
Regular backups are essential. When your hard drive dies—and it will die eventually—it’s important to know you’ve got another copy of everything somewhere. PC users can use Windows’ File History to back up their data, but Mac users have something that’s arguably simpler and more powerful: Time Machine.
This free backup tool, included with every Mac, keeps a day’s worth of hourly backups, a month’s worth of daily backups, and weekly backups until there’s no more space. MacBooks will also create “local snapshots” on their internal storage, so you’ve got a small record to work with even when you’re not plugged in.
How to Back Up With Time Machine
RELATED:How to Encrypt Your Mac’s System Drive, Removable Devices, and Individual Files
The easiest way to use Time Machine is to connect an external drive to your Mac. You’ll be asked if you want to configure it as a Time Machine drive; click “Use as Backup Disk” if that’s what you want to do. Click the “Encrypt Backup Disk” option if you want to secure your backup disks with encryption.
To check the progress of your backups head to System Preferences > Time Machine.
You can optionally click “Show Time Machine in menu bar” if you’d like to track backups from there.
While external hard drives are the simplest option, it’s also possible to back up wirelessly over the network. The simplest tool for this is Apple’s Airport Time Capsule, a combination router and storage device that makes backing up easy. Sadly, Apple doesn’t seem committed to updating this device anytime soon, but you can use another Mac as a Time Machine server instead, or even a Raspberry Pi if you’re feeling creative.
You can even have your Mac back up to multiple locations, rotating between them so you can have backups in two or more locations.
Enabling Time Machine on a MacBook will also enable the “local snapshots” feature. Your Mac will save a single daily snapshot as well as a single weekly snapshot of your files to its internal storage if the Time Machine backup drive isn’t available. This provides you with a way to recover deleted files or restore previous versions of files even if you’re away from your backup drive for a while.
RELATED:Save Space on Your Time Machine Drive by Excluding These Folders From Backups
While Time Machine does include everything by default, you can click the Options button in the Time Machine window and exclude certain folders. For example, you could exclude your /Applications folder to save space on the Time Machine backup.
Automatic vs. Manual Backups
The first Time Machine backup will take the longest, as everything on your drive is backed up. Future backups won’t take as long, as only new and changed files will have to be backed up.
Time Machine normally functions automatically. If your drive is connected to the computer or the network location is available, it will back up once per hour. You could disconnect your external drive when using your MacBook during the day and plug it in when you get home in the evening. Your Mac would back up when the drive is connected.
You can also choose to perform manual backups instead. To do this, open Time Machine’s settings screen and toggle Time Machine to “Off.” You can then click the Time Machine icon on the menu bar and select “Back Up Now” to perform a manual backup at any time. Automatic backups are usually a better option — you’ll have more backups and you won’t be able to forget about it.
How to Restore Individual Files from a Backup
Click the Time Machine icon on the menu bar and select “Enter Time Machine” to enter the restore interface. This screen allows you to locate deleted files or previous versions of files and restore them.
Select a date and time at the bottom-right corner of the window to “go back in time” to the point where the file you want to restore existed. Dates in pink indicate the backup is stored on an external drive, while dates in white indicate local snapshots stored on your Mac’s internal storage.
Locate a file you want to restore, select it, and click the “Restore” button to restore it to the same folder on your Mac. If it would overwrite and existing file, you’ll be asked what you want to do.
You can also select a file and press the spacebar to preview it with Quick Look before restoring it.
Time Machine includes a search feature as well. Just type a search into the search box in the Finder window inside Time Machine to search for a file you want to restore.
How to Restore an Entire Mac
RELATED:8 Mac System Features You Can Access in Recovery Mode
Time Machine also allows you to restore an entire Mac’s system state. You can only do this if the backup was created on the same model of Mac. To do this, hold down Command+R as your Mac boots to access Recovery mode. You’ll see an option to restore your entire system from a a Time Machine Backup here.
Time Machine also backs up your macOS Recovery files to your Time Machine backup disk, so you can hold the “Option” key as you boot, select the Time Machine drive, and boot straight to recovery mode even if the recovery system is unavailable on your Mac.
How to Restore Time Machine Backups on Another Mac
To restore files from a Time Machine backup on another Mac, navigate to the /Applications/Utilities folder and open the Migration Assistant application. You can also press Command+Space, search for Migration Assistant, and press Enter.
Connect the Time Machine backup drive and use Migration Assistant to migrate the backed up files from your previous Mac to your new Mac.
Migration Assistant is also offered when setting up a new Mac, making a Time Machine backup a very quick way to get all your files and applications onto a new computer.
How to Restore a Time Machine Backup on Windows
Time Machine requires a drive formatted with the Mac HFS+ file system, so if you want to restore your Time Machine files using Windows, you need you’ll need to install an application like the free HFSExplorer that can read a HFS+ file system and copy files from it. HFSExplorer unfortunately requires Java, but it’s the only free application we know of that allows you to read HFS+ file systems on Windows.
RELATED:How to Restore Files From a Time Machine Backup on Windows
If you’d just like to stop using Time Machine and use the drive with a Windows PC, you can reformat the drive with the NTFS or FAT32 file systems using the Windows Disk Management tool.
Time Machine isn’t a cross-platform backup solution, but it is very powerful. If you’re a Mac user, you should be using it.
Mac Os X Time Machine Manual Backup
READ NEXTApple Time Machine Backup Drive
- › How to Make Your Family Love Your Smarthome
- › How to Enable Google Chrome’s New Extensions Menu
- › How to Stop Spammers From Attacking Your Google Calendar
- › How to Power Off Your Samsung Galaxy Note 10 or 10 Plus
- › How to Switch from a Windows PC to a Mac