Your data might get damaged, corrupted, or deleted due to an unexpected or unprecedented situation. Backups are essential, especially if you want your data to be recovered when it gets removed due to any reason. Be it family photos, tax documents, or other relevant information related articles; your Mac must have some related documents, photos, or files. So, make sure that you have a backup of those files or folders before, by any chance, they get extinct. Taking a backup is easier than you might think. You can take the backup manually, too, but it will consume a reasonable amount of time as you will have to select every file individually. In this article, we have discussed how to take a backup of your Mac to an external hard drive with the help of Time Machine.
You can manually take a backup of files, but chances are you might skip some of the main files, so it is best if you take the backup by running Time Machine in the background which will ensure that your system takes a backup of every file and hence there will rarely be any file which will get skipped. If you generally don’t take a backup of your Mac, then please make sure to do it whenever any of these two statements appear on your screen: This driver has a hardware problem that can’t be repaired, Backup as much of the data as possible and replace the disk.
How to Take the Backup of Your Mac
You can take the backup of your Mac by manually copying the files, using Time Machine, cloning your Mac, or using iCloud storage. You can go through the below-mentioned details regarding each of the ways:
Manual Backup of the Files
By this method, you need to manually back up your files by copying each file to the external storage. This process is only useful when you have a limited number of files that need to be copied. You can also use this feature if you are experiencing a disk failure. In that case, you should immediately take the manual backup of your important files before attempting to take the full backup of your Mac. Manual backup is a time-consuming process; however, if you want to take the backup of only selected files, you may follow the manual backup process. To take the manual backup of files on your Mac, you may follow these steps:
Connect your USB flash drive or an external hard drive to your Mac and then copy the files or the folders that you want to backup.
Press command + C to copy the files you want to backup and then open the external hard drive or the USB flash drive.
Once you open any of the attached drives, then simply press Command + V. Doing this will copy your files or folders to the external hard drive or on the USB flash drive.
You can repeat the process if you want to take the backup of some more files or folders.
In the future, if you want to copy your files and folders from the external drive to your Mac, then follow the same procedure by which you copied them on your external drive.
Backup Using Time Machine
With the help of this method, you can take the full backup of your Mac at one time, and also, this method allows your system to update the tools on a regular basis automatically. To take the backup using Time Machine, you may follow the steps mentioned below:
Connect an external drive with your Mac, click on the Apple menu in the upper left corner of your main screen, and then select System Preferences.
Click on the Time Machine option and then click on Select Backup Disk.
Select the disk that you want to use and click on Use Disk.
A quick menu will appear where you will have to click on the Erase option to format the disk for use with Time Machine.
Click on the checkbox next to the Show Time Machine option in the menu bar and then click on the Time Machine icon.
Click on the Back Up Now option. Once you have done that, Time Machine will automatically look for the backups and back up your data on the hard drive.
If you again want to take a backup in the future, then simply connect the external hard drive and follow the 5th and 6th options.
If you want to let the backup happen automatically, select Back Up Automatically during the 6th step. Once you are done with it, as long as the backup drive is connected to your Mac, Time Machine will automatically take the backup of your files every hour.
Clone Your Mac
This method can be used to create a complete copy of your hard drive. It is beneficial if your driver fails or your system gets a booting problem, you can boot from this copy and continue working as usual until your problem has been fixed.
Cloud Storage like iCloud
You can upload the contents of any of your specific folders to the services like iCloud. In case your local drive gets corrupted, you will have the backup on your iCloud storage, from where you can download everything again. All the apple users, by default, get a free iCloud Storage of 5GB. This 5GB of storage space is essential for those who don’t work on a lot of data. However, if 5GB is not enough for you, you can opt for an additional monthly plan. You can choose from 50 GB to 2 TB of storage space according to your requirement.
Mia Watson is an avid technical blogger, a magazine contributor, a publisher of guides at Blogs Book, and a professional cyber security analyst. Through her writing, she aims to educate people about the dangers and threats lurking in the digital world.
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