Consider the worst case scenario. Losing precious photographs due to a failed Mac hard drive. Your dissertation was accidentally deleted. You may believe it will never happen to you, but all it takes is a glass of water to fall on your MacBook to lose everything. Learn How Time Machine Backup Can Save You From Losing Everything.
However, if you have a backup, the financial burden of purchasing a new Mac will be mitigated by the fact that you can recover everything from your previous computer. Apple has made it really simple to back up your Mac, so there is no excuse not to.
In a separate post, we discuss the necessity of backing up your Mac in general, but in this piece, we’ll focus on one way in particular: Time Machine.
This tutorial covers everything you need to know about backing up your Mac with Time Machine, including how to use Time Machine, what to do if Time Machine is too slow, what Time Machine backs up and does not back up, whether Time Machine backs up while your Mac is sleeping, what to do if your backup fails due to insufficient space, and how to delete old backups. We’ll also cover using Time Machine to back up numerous Macs.
What Apple’s Time Machine Does?
Time Machine is the backup software included with every Mac from Apple. To back up, all you need is a separate storage device or a MacOS Server.
Time Machine maintains a copy of all data on your Mac. It creates hourly backups of the previous 24 hours, daily backups of the previous month, and weekly backups of each month. It also creates snapshots locally on your Mac. Every 24 hours, beginning when you start or restart your computer, one photo is kept. Every week, a weekly snapshot is saved. Only if you have configured Time Machine to back up to a separate disc will these snapshots exist, but they are stored on your Mac rather than that drive.
This may sound like a lot of justification, but it is not. Time Machine simply backs up the modifications made since the previous backup, thus each backup should be extremely speedy.
This does not imply that the new changes replace the previous ones. Time Machine maintains several copies of all files that you are currently working on. For instance, you can view a document as it appeared on Wednesday as well as Thursday’s version.
If you were constantly revising a document, you would have 24 copies from the previous 24 hours, one copy for each day of the previous month, and one copy per week from the previous months.
Additionally, it is quite simple to locate prior versions of a file, which is useful if you change your mind about changes made a few days ago. When you examine your Time Machine backup, everything is arranged identically to how it was in the past.
If you had a file on your Desktop before deleting it by accident on Thursday, you can retrieve it by going to the Desktop folder as it existed on Wednesday. This is why Apple names it Time Machine, as you are essentially rewinding through time to locate the file.
Because Time Machine does not back up your entire Mac every time, it should not consume a great deal of capacity on your backup drive. However, when that time comes, older backups will be erased to make room for newer ones.
If you ever buy a new Mac, you can utilise your Time Machine backup to “recover” your old Mac onto the new Mac. All of your settings and files and folders will be preserved just as you left them. Below, we will discuss how to recover your Mac using the Time Machine backup and how to transfer your Time Machine backup to a new Mac.
What Is needed For Time Machine?
A reasonably large external storage device is required. This might be a hard drive or SSD that you put into your Mac through USB, Firewire, or Thunderbolt, or a NAS device to which your Mac connects over a WiFi network. If you can afford it, we recommend purchasing a device with at least 1 TB of storage.
You may also use Time Machine to back up to a network server, so long as it is running macOS Server, which is accessible here.
Your Mac must be running Mac OS X Leopard or later, however we encourage updating to the most recent version of Mac OS X.
We offer a collection of the finest NAS drives, the best hard drives, and the best SSDs to assist you in locating the optimal backup device.
How To Set Up Time Machine Backup On Your Mac
- Attach additional storage to your Mac.
- It must be formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled); if it’s not, launch Disk Utility and follow the instructions below.
- Apple has made it possible to choose between HFS+ and APFS for Time Machine backups in Big Sur; however, you must be running Big Sur on the Mac you intend to restore an APFS backup to. In macOS Big Sur, Time Machine finally gains support for APFS.
- Assuming the disc is formatted correctly, your Mac should prompt you to utilise the drive with Time Machine. 5.Select Use as Backup Disk from the menu.
- If you do not see the alert, navigate to System Options > Time Machine to access the Time Machine preferences.
- Select Backup Disk, choose the storage device you wish to back up to, and then click Use Disk.
- You have the option of Encrypting your backups. If you do so, a password will be required to access your backups.
How to get a shortcut to Time Machine
If you do not already have a shortcut to the Time Machine menu, creating one will make your life easier. This icon was available in El Capitan, however it removed in 2016 when Sierra was released.
If you don’t see this icon (it resembles a clock with a curved arrow), you can create a shortcut to the Time Machine options in the shape of a Time Machine icon in the menu on the right side of your screen’s upper-right corner.
If you do not see this icon in the menu bar, enter System Preferences > Time Machine and select Show Time Machine in menu bar.
If Time Machine is not already present in your Dock, you can add it as a shortcut to the backups rather than the menu. Open the Applications folder, pick the Time Machine icon, and then drag it to the Dock.
How Often Should You Back Up Your Mac?
You should periodically back up your Mac. The beauty of Time Machine is that it backs up almost constantly, but instead of making an entire backup of your Mac each time, the software merely copies the items you are now working on, so each backup is small and you will barely notice it.
The majority of other backup solutions require daily system-wide backups. The advantage of Apple’s approach is that you can load a version of a document you were working on an hour ago, as opposed to repeatedly redoing until you reach that version.
Time Machine will only back up frequently if your Mac is physically connected to the device you’re backing up to. This may be an external storage device that requires connection to your Mac, so don’t forget to connect it! In addition, your Mac must be plugged in before Time Machine backups may be performed.
Alternately, it might be a network-attached storage device (NAS disc), in which case your Mac would only need to be connected to the same WiFi network to back up.
If your Mac hasn’t used Time Machine to back up in a while, you will receive alerts telling you to do so. Don’t wait a hundred days after your last Time Machine backup to accidentally pour water on your laptop (we say this from experience).
How to force a Time Machine backup
You can force Time Machine to perform a backup at any time, for example if you are about to shut down your Mac and want to ensure that the Time Machine back up is current.
Simply click the Time Machine icon in the menu bar and select Backup Now, or navigate to System Preferences > Time Machine and select Backup Now.
How long will a Time Machine backup take?
Curious as to how long Time Machine’s backup will take? This varies significantly.
If you’ve just made a few changes since the last backup, it’s possible that this one won’t take long: just a few minutes. However, if you haven’t backed up in a while or if this is your first backup, it will likely take a while.
To determine the duration of a backup, navigate to System Preferences > Time Machine or click the Time Machine menu item. A progress bar will display the number of megabytes being backed up and the remaining time.
Initially, you will notice Preparing Backup, followed by the size of the update while the software estimates the remaining time. If it is a standard backup, it is unlikely to exceed five minutes.
Learn How to Speed Up Your Time Machine Backup
How to Halt Time Machine Backup
If you don’t have time to back up your Mac at the moment — for instance, if you need to shut down your Mac and run home — you can prevent Time Machine from backing up your Mac.
An X will appear next to the progress bar described previously. This button stops the backup. In one hour, the system will restart the backup again. To restart it, see the section on how to force a Time Machine backup.
To halt a backup and resume it at a later time, click Skip This Backup from the Time Machine menu.
How to stop Time Machine backing up automatically
If the hourly backups troubles your working habit, you may disable them; however, don’t forget to use Time Machine to back up periodically, and keep in mind that it will take longer because the system won’t be performing incremental hourly backups, so there will be more data to cover.
- To deactivate automated backups, navigate to System Preferences > Time Machine.
- Deselect Automatically back up. (In Mac OS X El Capitan or earlier, select Disable Time Machine.)
- Click the grayed-out Time Machine icon in your menu bar and select Back Up Now the next time you need to back up your Mac.
Time Machine Failed Due To Lack Of Disk Space
If Time Machine is unable to complete the backup due to insufficient disc space, you have a few options.
You have the option to exclude certain objects from your backup. Follow the instructions below:
- Select Time Machine preferences by clicking the Time Machine icon in the menu (or open Time Machine from System Preferences).
- Select Options
- Click the plus sign and locate the files and folders you wish to exclude from the backup. If you have iTunes Match, for instance, you do not need to back up your music library because it is already kept up in iCloud.
- Alternately, you could erase old backups from your storage device, but Time Machine should do so automatically over time. Open the storage device in the Finder and navigate to the Backups.backupdb folder to retrieve the backup files. Find some of the older files and delete them; you must also empty the trash.
How to speed up Time Machine backup
Expect Time Machine’s initial backup operation to take some time. Time Machine transfers practically all of your Mac’s data. You can continue to use your Mac while Time Machine backs up your data in the background.
If you have just upgraded macOS, Time Machine could take longer to complete a backup.
Time Machine may take longer to back up your Mac if your previous backup was interrupted or if a large number of files have changed, possibly because the backup device has been unplugged for some time.
In certain instances, you can omit certain objects from the backup to reduce the amount of data to back up.
If you are backing up across a network to a server or a network attached storage device (NAS), it may be faster if you relocate your Mac into the same room as your router, or if you use an Ethernet connection to connect the storage device to your Mac or the Mac to your router. This should increase network speed.
If you use virtualization software to run other operating systems on your Mac, there may be big disc images on your Mac that include data relevant to those other operating systems. Even if you simply modified a few files on another operating system, Time Machine can back up the entire disc image. You may thus want to instruct Time Machine to exclude these files from backups.
Anti-virus software is yet another factor that can interfere with backups. You could exclude the backup drive from the virus scan.
Ensure that your software is up-to-date, restart your Mac, and, if you are backing up via a network, restart your router, if things are still slow.
Back Up Your Mac When You Are Sleeping
If your Mac supports Power Nap, it can run Time Machine backups while sleeping or with the lid closed. It needs only to be plugged into the wall outlet.
- Power Nap is accessible via System Preferences > Energy Saver.
- If it is not already enabled, select Enable Power Nap when connected to a power adapter under Power Adapter.
Backing Up Your Mac With Time Machine On Multiple Macs?
If you have multiple Macs, you do not need multiple external drives for backups. Multiple Macs can be backed up to the Time Machine drive. You’ll need an external drive large enough to store all the backups; it’s recommended that you multiply the space currently used by all of your Macs by 1.2 to get the very minimum you’ll require.
You might just connect your Time Machine backup drive to a different Mac. This Mac will begin creating backups in a different folder on that drive.
If you don’t want to constantly plug and unplug the drive, you can back up over the network; however, this may be slower than using a connected connection. You might configure a network-attached storage device, a macOS Server, or utilise Personal File Sharing to network-connect both Macs.
Wish to learn more about time machine backup, visit apple’s time machine backup page.
Most of the time, people will need time machine backup due to insufficient storage on their mac, and they are required to reset the entire mac to remove the “Others” section which consumes majority of their hard disk space. If you are thinking about upgrading storage for your mac, feel free to contact us.