Backing up your Mac ensures you can recover your important data when your system is infected by malware, stolen or broken. There are different ways to backup your data on a Mac, and some of them are explained below.
Using Time Machine To Back Up Your Data
Time Machine is Apple’s backup software, and it is a part of macOS. Backing up data using Time Machine is an extremely easy solution. You need to plug in an external storage device, SSD or hard drive and start the backing up process.
Along with backing up your data on Mac, Time Machine offers hourly backups for the past twenty-four hours, weekly backups for each month and daily backups for the past month. So, you can quickly and easily recover to an earlier version of a document if you require it.
However, there’s one drawback to using Time Machine, and that’s requiring an external drive. You have to plug in an external drive, or nothing will be backed up. Also, Time Machine backups take a lot of storage space, and you would need an external drive with at least 1TB of space. Since an external drive is involved, it would help you know that sometimes Macs show errors when reading external hard drives. If that happens, you can go through this guide at setapp.com to keep in mind some handy troubleshooting tricks.
Now, take a look at how to backup using Time Machine.
- Plug in the SSD or hard drive to your Mac.
- When you see an alert asking if you want to use the drive with Time Machine, you need to click Use as Backup Disk. If you don’t see the alert, go to System Preferences > click Time Machine > select Choose Backup Disk. Select the Storage device and click Use Disk.
Using Icloud To Backup Important Data On Your Mac
Do you have a monthly subscription for iCloud storage? If so, you can use iCloud to backup your data. In iCloud, you can choose to keep your numbers, documents folders and desktop, your mail, keynote documents and pages, etc. It is a useful solution if you have more than one Mac or can access things when working from an iPad or iPhone.
Here’s how you can backup using iCloud:
- Go to System Preferences on your Mac and select iCloud.
- Sign in to your iCloud account and tick the box beside iCloud.
- On the iCloud row, click on the Options box and ensure to tick the box beside anything that you wish to store in iCloud.
- Click on Finder, and you will see an iCloud Drive folder on the left. You need to click on it to open the folder. On your Mac, you can move any folder that is not already in iCloud to your iCloud and access it across your Apple devices.
Using Dropbox To Backup Data From Your Mac
If you are looking for iCloud alternatives, you won’t be disappointed because there are several other ways to sync and share your files. You can use Dropbox or even decide to use Microsoft OneDrive or Google Drive. However, keep in mind that these solutions are typically used for sharing files with friends or colleagues. Or if you want to store files in a place where everyone can collaborate. So, these options are not backing up all your data.
For backing up using Dropbox, you can follow these steps:
- You need to sign up for Dropbox by downloading and installing the software. If you already have an account, sign it, and if you don’t, create an account.
- After the software is installed on your device, you need to open Dropbox, and then you’ll be taken to the web interface where files can be copied.
- Select Upload Folder or Upload Files on the right and locate the files or folder you want to upload. Then, click on Choose. It would help if you waited while the folder or files get uploaded.
- Using Finder, you can easily drag and drop the files and folder into Dropbox. You can install the files and folder on any other iOS device or computer with Dropbox installed.
You must ensure to backup your data because it is the only way to keep your important data safe if something happens to your Mac. So, these are a few of the easiest and most effective ways to backup your Mac. If you need more help, you can contact an Apple technician or go to the nearest Apple store.