The good thing is that the Time Machine can easily work with any kind of external drive connected to your Mac computer. In addition to this, it also supports Apple’s Time Capsule. In addition to this, it also supports Apple’s Time Capsule. Apple's Time Machine is the go-to backup method for many Mac users. Apple's termination of the AirPort/Time Capsule series, however, puts some users in a lurch over how they will be continuing to back up their Macs using Time Machine. Luckily there are Apple approved Time Machine backup options sans Time Capsule.
Sep 07, 2020 Time Machine is Apple's built-in solution for backing up macOS. You can connect an external hard drive over USB or Thunderbolt (or FireWire, for older Macs) for a wired connection, or over a network for a wireless connection. Time Machine backs up every hour, deleting older backups as the backup drive starts running out of space. Aug 14, 2019 Time Machine requires that an external drive be formatted like a Mac startup disk: Mac OS Extended (Journaled) with a GUID Partition Table (GPT). If you select a differently formatted drive for use with Time Machine, your Mac automatically prompts you to erase it for Time Machine.
It’s a good idea to back up your Mac in case your hard drive fails or your computer crashes. If this happens, you could lose all of your personal files. The safe mac. To prevent this, you should back up your files on a separate drive that you can restore from if anything happens to your computer. And thankfully, you can do this easily on your Mac with a built-in backup application on your computer. Here’s how to back up your Mac with Time Machine.
What Does Time Machine Back Up?
TimeMachine backs up all the files on your computer, including apps, music,documents, photos, emails, and system files. With a backup, you can restorefiles you accidentally delete or change. When Time Machine is turned on, itwill automatically back up your files on your Mac hourly, daily, or weekly. Inaddition, it also deletes older backups as the backup starts running out ofspace.
Note: To use this application, you’ll need some form of external storage, such as an external hard drive. If you want to know more about how to format your hard drive for Mac computers, check out our guide here.
How to Back Up with Time Machine
- Connect an external hard drive to your computer. If you are connecting this drive for the first time, a pop-up window will appear to ask you if you want to use Time Machine. If you see this pop-up window, you can click “Use as a Backup Disk.” Then skip to the last step.
- Then click the Apple icon in the Apple Menu. The Apple icon is always located in the top-left corner of your screen.
- Next, select System Preferences.
- Click on the Time Machine icon. The icon looks like a curving arrow pointing downward that surrounds a clock face. Clicking this will open Time Machine preferences.
- Click Select Backup Disk.
- Select the drive you’ll use as a Time Machine backup.
- Finally, click the Back Up Automatically box. This will automatically start to back up your files on your Mac to your chosen disk.
Once the first backup is complete, Time Machine will check your computer for new, changed, and deleted files every hour to make backups of your Mac. The application keeps a daily backup for the past month. It will also keep weekly backups as long as the storage device still has space. Once the storage device runs out of space, the oldest backups will be deleted from Time Machine.
If you want to back up your Mac manually, click the box next to Show Time Machine in menu bar. Then click the icon in your menu bar and select Back Up Now.
How to Selectively Back Up with Time Machine
If you don’t want to back up every single file, you can also opt to select which files you want to back up. Follow the steps below to exclude files from your backup:
- First, select System Preferences from the Apple menu.
- Then click on the Time Machine icon.
- Click Options… You will find this in the bottom-right corner of the window.
- Click the “+” button.
- Choose the files or folders you want to exclude in your backup. You can select applications, files, and folders to exclude. You can select multiple items at once by holding the Command key on your keyboard.
- Then click Exclude.
- Finally, click the Save button.
The files you don’t want to back up will now be excluded from Time Machine backup.
Now that you know how to back up your files, check out our guide on how to restore from Time Machine here.
Was this article helpful?
Related Articles
Do you wish to learn how to delete Time Machine backups as your storage is full? Time Machine saved the backups on the external drive, and there are times when you want it clear. If you do not know how to delete Time Machine backups, here is the solution for you. This blog post covers the simple method explaining how to delete backups from a Time Machine. First, let us find out what it is and how it operates.
What Is a Time Machine Backup In Mac?
Time Machine is the in-built feature of Mac, which helps in taking automatic backups. Time Machine backup can help you keep a complete backup of the system files, apps, emails, photos, and other documents. If the Time Machine is turned on, it will automatically take backups of your system. This backup is helpful when you face a system crash or need to look at the old backups. These backups are all saved up in an external device. It can be anything from a USB, Thunderbolt, FireWire drive. Whenever the disk is full, Time Machine deletes the oldest backups. It will regularly keep a backup of the past 24 hours, which is done on an automatic hourly process. It can keep up the backup for each day in a month as well.
How To Delete Backups From Time Machine?
Step 1: Open Menu Bar and then go to the Time Machine icon.
In case you do not see the Time Machine icon on the menu bar, it might not have been added there. No worries, go to the Apple Menu. Make zip file mac.
Here you can click on the System Preferences.
![Time Time](https://icons.iconarchive.com/icons/ampeross/smooth/512/Apple-Timemachine-icon.png)
Now you can easily view the Time Machine icon.
![What is time What is time](https://s2.glbimg.com/QYLS31Xc3eb1976tJUnz8yzYT6c=/0x600/s.glbimg.com/po/tt2/f/original/2016/01/13/hfsexplorer_4.png)
To add a Time Machine icon on the Menu bar, right-click the option to “ Show Time Machine in Menu bar.”
OR
Go to the menu bar; click on GO. Now you will see the multiple options in the drop-down menu.
Click on Applications.
Step 2: As you will view the Time Machine, you need to click on it.
This will instantly open up the Time Machine application for you, and you will be able to see the old backups on Mac.
Step 3: Once you have opened the backup on Time Machine, you can proceed to the next step. This is how to delete the Time Machine backups, using the Finder.
Step 4: Finder will help you clear the Time Machine backup and make space on the external drive. It lets you delete files and folders individually, but they have to be in the Backups.backupdb folder. Other items can not be deleted individually, so you have to delete the backups from Time Machine entirely.
How To Run Time Machine
Note: Do not use any other app like Terminal to delete backups from the Backups.backupdb folder.
How Does Time Machine Work
Remember, if you are trying to make space in the external drive, and that is the reason behind clearing the old backups, you can reduce the storage. This can be done before the backup of Time Machine. One must always clear the junk and duplicates present on the storage. This will help you to keep an organized backup on Time Machine as well.
We suggest using Disk Clean Pro, a Mac cleaning application at the most affordable rate ever. This is a must-have cleaning app for your Mac, which gives you some amazing features to optimize Mac. It runs a complete scan of the disk on Mac and then shows the junk, duplicates, old downloads, and other miscellaneous data like mail downloads. This will help you clear out much space on your Mac, and thus, when the Time Machine backup is formed; it will not be cluttered. Thus, making more space in the external drive to use.
Verdict-
When you are willing to clear the external drive space, you learn how to delete backups from Time Machine. This simple procedure will help you in deleting the unnecessary backups. If you are clearing your Mac for unwanted data, using DiskClean Pro also proves to be a great help. It will reduce the files uploaded in the backup for Time Machine. Download it now on Mac to keep it clutter-free.
What Is Time Machine
We hope that this method helps you understand how to delete Time Machine backups on Mac. We would like to know your views on this post to make it more useful. Your suggestions and comments are welcome in the comment section below. Share the information with your friends and others by sharing the article on social media.
We love to hear from you!
What Is Time Machine Mac
We are on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube. For any queries or suggestions, please let us know in the comments section below. We love to get back to you with a solution. We regularly post tips and tricks, along with answers to common issues related to technology. Turn on the notification to get regular updates on the tech world.