How to Back Up Your Computer with Time Machine

You have valuable data residing on your computer

From irreplaceable family photos to the presentation you're working on, they all need to be protected. Without a proper backup system in place, though, you could lose all of those digital files in a blink of an eye.

But don't worry; backing up your Mac is so surprisingly simple, you only have to set it up once to enjoy the peace of mind that all your files are safe. Here's how to back up your computer in macOS using Time Machine and other utilities.

In this guide, you'll learn to automatically back up versions of your most important files to another drive and also create a complete copy of your entire system.

This way, in the event of a computer crash, virus, accidentally deleted file, or another common tech catastrophe, you can get back up and running in no time.
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How to Back Up Your Computer with Time Machine

Mac macOS (10.5 and above) has an excellent built-in backup tool called Time Machine. Once you plug in a hard drive and set up Time Machine, it will work automatically in the background, continuously saving copies of all your files, applications, and system files (i.e., most everything except for the stuff you likely don’t need to back up, such as files in the trash bin, cache files, and log files). If you run out of disk space, Time Machine will automatically erase the oldest version of the files to make way for the new ones.

It's pretty much a set-and-forget system for local backups:


1- Connect an external hard drive to your Mac

You'll need a drive that is at least the same size as your Mac's internal drive. With storage quite cheap these days, aim to use a drive that's two to four times the size of the drive you're backing up. Plug in your external hard drive (via USB, FireWire, or Thunderbolt, depending on your drive). You can also use Time Machine with an external hard drive connected to an Airport Extreme router, with an AirPort Time Capsule network device, or with other network drives. (For simplicity's sake, we're using an external drive for the examples below. Directly connected external drives are also faster.) Tip: Time Machine will by default use up all the space available on the drive. If you'd also like to use some of the hard drive space for storing other files, you'll need to partition the drive into two volumes: one for the Time Machine backups and one for your other files. You can do that with macOS's Disk Utility found under Applications > Utilities. MakeUseOf has detailed instructions for doing this, which comes in handy if you don't want Time Machine taking over your entire 4TB drive.

2- Turn on Time Machine and select the backup destination

Once your external drive is plugged in, go to System Preferences > Time Machine and toggle the switch from "Off" to "On."

Then click the "Select Disk…" button to select the drive or volume you want to use for Time Machine. Time Machine will ask you if you want to use the disk as your backup destination and will give you the option to encrypt the backups with a password.

The drive needs to be formatted as Mac macOS Extended (Journaled); if it's not, Time Machine will prompt you to reformat the drive (which will erase all files on it!).

3 - (Optional): Exclude items or get notified of old backup deletions

The "Options" button in Time Machine will let you exclude volumes from the backups or get notifications when old backups are deleted.
4- Let Time Machine do its work

Those options selected, backups will happen automatically every hour. Time Machine keeps:
Hourly backups for the past 24 hours
Daily backups for the past month
Weekly backups for all previous months

How to Restore Files from Time Machine Backups

To view and restore files or folders from Time Machine, go to the Spotlight search and enter "Time Machine" to switch to the Time Machine view

Here you'll be able to scroll through the timeline on the right site to go back to a certain point in time or search for a file. With a file highlighted, press the space bar to get a quick look of it or click the "Restore" button to copy the file back to the appropriate folder. (In case of filename conflicts, you'll be asked which file to keep or whether to keep both versions.)

Time Machine can also restore your entire system at once, using the latest copies of all your files. While your Mac is restarting, hold down the Command (⌘) and R keys, and release the keys when the Apple logo appears. Then select "Restore from a Time Machine Backup."

You can't really rely on Time Machine for a complete full-system backup, however, if your startup disk is damaged and you can't boot into your Mac. For times like these, you'll need to have a clone (or complete image) of your system.
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