Backing up your device is one of the most important things you can do if you have data you are worried about protecting in case your device fails.
In this guide we will walk you through setting up a Time Machine Backup on your Mac
Connecting an External Storage device to you Mac
Before running Time Machine, you will want to connect an external storage device of some kind, you can find some good examples here as to different things you can use for this, most of the external drives we sell will work as well! You will want to make sure you drive can plug into your Mac, for help Identifying what ports you have, Apple has this handy guide.
- To ensure you have enough space to keep your backup up to date with your computer, you want to make sure the drive you choose has at least double the space of your current drive inside your computer (e.g. the drive in your Mac is 1tb, you want your external drive to be 2tb)
- As this drive is essentially going to be a backup of your computer in case something happens, you want to make sure it is only used for time machine, if there are already files on it, clear them off, and do not save additional files to the drive.
Setting the External drive as your Backup
Here are the steps you need to follow to setup your drive as a Time machine backup.
- Click the Apple logo in the Upper right-hand corner of the screen:
- Click System settings in the menu that pops up:
- Click General on the left side of the settings menu:
- Click Time Machine:
- Click Add Backup Disk...:
- Choose your connected storage device and click Set Up Disk. During the setup process:
- If you already have data on the drive, your Mac may prompt you to erase it so the drive can be used for Time machine, if the Data on this drive is important, either move the Data to another location before proceeding, or choose a different drive.
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If your drive was used for a backup on another mac, you may get a popup asking, "Should this computer claim the existing backups" Clicking Claim, the backup will be integrated into the backup for your new machine and your oldest date from the previous machine will remain intact. If you choose Start New, it will erase the old backup and start fresh as a new backup with the oldest date being the day you start it:
- If you choose to Encrypt your backup, you will need to create a password for it. Keep it somewhere safe where you won't lose it. You will need this password in order to restore files from the backup. (Only apply encryption if you feel like you need it, this is not a required step and you can turn it on and off using the switch on this screen before starting):
Once you have chosen your Encryption settings click done in the bottom right hand corner and your Mac will start using the drive for Automatic Backup, by default its set to every hour, if you want to adjust this you can click the Options button on the Time machine page in General settings:
Manually backing up your Mac
- After setting up your backup drive, there may come a time where you want to initiate a backup before your scheduled backup time, you can do this using the backup Icon in the upper right hand corner of the screen:
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Click on Backup now in the menu that opens:
This same menu can also be used to pause/skip your current backup, it can also be used to browse your existing backups, as well as being a quick way to access your backup settings. At the top of the menu, you will see the completion status of your current backup, or the date and time of your last backup completed.
Backup in progress:
Backup finished:
If you are unable to see this menu, please make sure that the Control Center settings (macOS Ventura or later) or the Desktop & Menu Bar preferences (macOS Monterey or earlier) are set up to display Time Machine in the menu bar. If they are setup, you may still need to setup a backup drive for the first time, if this is the case, please see the first section of this guide!
Restoring from your Backup
There are a few ways you can use Time Machine to restore files or even your whole computer, please see our guides:
Whole Computer:
How to restore macOS from a Time Machine backup
Individual Files or programs: