how do i backup my mac to an external hard drive

Choose the one that's right for you and within your budget. Connecting your external hard drive to your Macbook and open up Time Machine. Click 'Erase' from the Disk Utility options. Open Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility Find your external hard drive in the list of drives. Since most external hard drives are formatted for PCs, before the backup of your Mac begins you need to format the hard drive for macOS. Choose the drive you want to backup and the destination for the backup, then click. Copying the files from your Mac to an external drive allows you to save data on your own terms. There are various choices for restoring your Mac from an external backup in macOS Big Sur and macOS Ventura. Bonus Tip: Backup External Hard Drive Data on Your Mac 1. In order to create a disk image of any drive, select disk clone. It is very time-consuming and less efficient than restoring directly from an external hard drive you have sitting right on your desk. You can then select the files and folders you want to restore from your backup menu.īecause you either have to download files from the Internet or send them away for a physical copy, I only recommend using a cloud-based backup service to restore your Mac if you don't already have a local backup on hand. You can launch the remote app on your Mac or visit the company's website. Most programs will have a Restore files tool right in the user interface. All of them will require that you download a backup from their remote servers, though - unless the service offers to send you a physical hard drive that you can use as a backup (Backblaze provides this feature). If you use a cloud-based backup service, like Backblaze or CrashPlan, you can download missing data to restore your Mac.Įach cloud-based backup service is different. How to back up your Mac to an online backup service (Image credit: Joseph Keller / iMore)

How do i backup my mac to an external hard drive