how to select what to backup on a mac
Don't get caught without a backup if your Mac crashes.
Óscar Gutiérrez/CNETBacking upward your Mac is one of those routine tasks that can current of air upwardly buried beneath the more than urgent priorities on your to-practice list. But if your MacBook or iMac crashes at an inopportune time -- as computers ever seem to do -- you'll exist infinitely grateful you took a few minutes to save all your important files. A backup also makes it easy to motility your apps and data to a new Mac if yous upgrade to a new motorcar, like the newly announced Mac Studio desktop or the rumored M2 MacBook Pro.
With so many cloud storage services bachelor that can automatically sync your files, such every bit Dropbox or Google Drive, it's piece of cake to just gear up it and forget it. Just cloud drives can't back upwards everything on your computer. For instance, they don't remember the local coffee shop's complicated Wi-Fi password or every setting y'all've inverse that's finally fabricated booting your Mac feel every bit familiar every bit sinking into a comfy burrow.
Apple makes backing up relatively painless past including its Time Machine app in the Mac operating system, which you lot can schedule to run a full fill-in of your Mac. You lot don't have to do a thing later on the initial setup process, which takes merely a few minutes.
Below I'll walk you through using Fourth dimension Automobile, cover how to check what iCloud is keeping a backup of and for those who want some extra assurance, how to back upward your Music library.
Time Machine is where information technology's at.
Sarah Tew/CNETEmploy Time Machine to back up your Mac
As long as it knows where to store the files, Time Machine tin be ready to periodically backup your estimator, though you can likewise manually trigger a fill-in. In fact, when you connect an external hard drive or SSD to your Mac, y'all may meet a prompt request if you desire to employ the drive with Time Machine.
In one case Fourth dimension Machine is ready up, information technology will create and store i backup every hour for the by 24 hours, daily backups for the past month and one fill-in a calendar week for all previous months until it runs out of space. Once the fill-in bulldoze is full, it will make room by deleting the oldest backups.
As far as how big of a drive to become, the dominion of thumb is 1.five to 2 times the size of your Mac's hard bulldoze. For example, if your Mac has 512GB of storage, you lot'll want a 1TB drive. You can find an external hard drive or SSD for relatively fiddling, and nosotros fifty-fifty have ahandy guide to the best drives.
The bulldoze tin exist directly continued to your Mac or connected via your network.
Apple tree's supported options are:
- External USB, Thunderbolt or FireWire drive connected to your Mac
- Network-attached storage (NAS) device that supports Fourth dimension Machine over SMB
- Mac shared as a Time Automobile backup destination
- External bulldoze connected to an Aerodrome Extreme Base of operations Station (802.11ac) or AirPort Time Capsule
- AirPort Time Capsule (technically discontinued, but still available every bit a refurb)
To begin, plug the drive into your Mac and await for the prompt to use it with Time Machine. If your Mac forgets its manners and doesn't ask, select the drive to use by going toSystem Preferences >Time Machine and clicking theSelect Disk button.
If it'southward non already formatted to work every bit a backup drive, Time Motorcar volition ask if you want to format the bulldoze. Doing so volition erase anything on the drive, so make sure at that place's nothing on the drive you don't desire to lose.
When selecting your drive for Fourth dimension Auto, you can also choose to encrypt backups. Encryption means restoring from the Time Machine backup will require a password. If y'all desire it to back up at regular intervals, make certain to check the box next toSupport Automatically.
Click theOptions push in Time Auto's panel in System Preferences to point what types of items y'all'd like Time Machine to exclude. Excluding items tin speed up the process, but you lot can notwithstanding use your Mac while its running in the background. Older Macs might feel a bit sluggish during the backup process, though.
There is also an pick toEvidence Fourth dimension Automobile in menu bar. The carte bar icon lets you keep an heart on the status of the fill-in, terminate it and manually start a backup.
To restore your organisation or even a single file to a previous point, click the menu bar and cullEnter Time Motorcar. You'll see your previous Fourth dimension Machine backups arranged like cards in a rolodex. Scroll through, find the one you want and click theRestore push button.
Organize your files before creating a backup and then you don't leave anything behind.
Screenshot by Jason Cipriani/CNETiCloud backs upwardly some stuff, but non everything
Where Time Machine is a consummate arrangement backup, iCloud simply stores selected files and data. You can see a list of everything that's currently existence synced and stored in your iCloud account underSystem Preferences >Internet Accounts >iCloud. Naturally, this tin exist limited past the amount of data in your iCloud or Apple tree One subscription. The costless default is a mere 5GB of iCloud space.
Click theOptions button next to iCloud Drive to run into the files and folders that are stored in your account. Information technology should include your Desktop and Documents folders, along with any apps you use that shop information in iCloud Bulldoze.
Ownership a new Mac? Here'south a list of the best MacBooks in 2022 and the best MacBook deals happening now. Plus, y'all should get a Mac VPN.
Source: https://www.cnet.com/tech/computing/how-to-backup-mac-to-icloud-time-machine/
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