1. Best Way To Back Up Macbook Pro
2. How To Back Up My Mac
3. Mac Time Machine

1. Get Backup Pro's main attraction is its flexibility. It can back up your entire hard drive or only the folders you specify. You use it to create bootable clones of your Mac's startup drive, and to.
2. Select a backup, if available, then click Continue. Select a destination disk, which will receive the contents of your backup. If restoring from a local snapshot, you aren't asked to select a destination. Click Restore or Continue. If your Mac has FileVault turned on, you're asked to enter your administrator password to unlock the disk.
3. How to Back Up Your Computer with Time Machine. Mac macOS (10.5 and above) has an excellent built-in backup tool called Time Machine. Once you plug in a hard drive and set up Time Machine, it will work automatically in the background, continuously saving copies of all your files, applications, and system files (i.e., most everything except for the stuff you likely don’t need to back up, such.

When used at home, it will backup your MacBook Pro and any other Mac computer on your local network without having to do a thing. Time Machine automatically detects when you’re on your home network and then determines when it’s time to backup your computer. All of it is done in the background. Shut off your Macbook Pro. Plug in your external hard drive. Connect cord from drive to Macbook Pro. Turn on Macbook Pro and external hard drive. When you see the drive pop up on the home screen, you’ve got your place that will store your backup ready. Click on the small icon for Time Machine up in the taskbar. Click Open Time Machine.

Backing up your Mac is simple and important. We recommend it for everyone.

Back up with Time Machine

Time Machine is the built-in backup feature of your Mac. It’s a complete backup solution, but you can use other backup methods as well.

Store files in iCloud

You can also use iCloud and iCloud Drive to store files, such as your photos, documents, and music.

Restore your Mac from a backup

When you have a backup, you can use it to restore your files at any time, including after the original files are deleted from your Mac.

Prepare your Mac for service

Making a backup is an important part of preparing your Mac for service, especially because some types of repair might require erasing or replacing your hard drive.

How much space do I need for a backup?

To see the size of a specific file or folder, click it once and then press Command-I. To see storage information about your Mac, click the Apple menu in the top-left of your screen. Choose About This Mac and click the Storage tab. For Time Machine backups, it's good to use a drive that has at least twice the storage capacity of your Mac.

Related topics

Free up storage on your Mac

macOS can save space by storing your content in the cloud. This isn't a backup, but it includes new tools to make it easier to find and remove large or unwanted files before you make a backup.

Erase or format a storage device

You can use Disk Utility if you need to erase or format a storage device.

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If you can't back up your Mac

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Like most people, I’m lazy about backing up my data. If it’s remotely inconvenient, I won’t do it. Fortunately, there are now several things you can do to back up your data in 2020, all without having to lift a finger. Smart Wi-Fi 6 access points and cloud computing services have changed the backup playing field. I’m going to share with you a foolproof plan for automatically backing up your data so you can rest easy.

Best automated backups for macOS

When Apple released Time Machine, they introduced a dead-simple way to backup your Mac. Just plug in an external hard drive, and let it do the rest. While it’s a great solution, I still have to remember to get my hard drive out on a regular basis, hook it up, and let it do its thing. I’m too lazy for that, or at least too lazy to do it frequently enough.

My solution was to get a Synology DiskStation. It’s a network-attached storage (NAS) device that supports Bonjour and Time Machine backups. When used at home, it will backup your MacBook Pro and any other Mac computer on your local network without having to do a thing. Time Machine automatically detects when you’re on your home network and then determines when it’s time to backup your computer. All of it is done in the background. It’s beautiful!

Another excellent NAS device for Time Machine is the Drobo 5N2 which supports dual redundancy.

Best automated cloud computing backups

Unfortunately, relying on one backup is not the best backup plan. Especially if you lose your computer in a house fire, which happens to be the same location as your Time Capsule or Drobo. For that reason (and others), I use a couple of cloud computing services for backups.

Just like Time Capsule or Drobo with Time Machine, these services can be set up to run automatically in the background. The two cloud computing services I use are Backblaze and Dropbox.

Backblaze

Best Way To Back Up Macbook Pro

I’ve tried several cloud computing backup services on macOS, including Mozy, but Backblaze was the service that worked the best and was also the most unobtrusive. Like Time Machine, Backblaze automates the backup of your hard drive, or the folders you specify, and saves them securely in the cloud.

The price is incredibly cheap. It only cost $6/mo for unlimited storage. One of the things I like the most about Backblaze is that it allows me to specify the backup speed. I can either choose better network performance (slower backup speeds) or faster backups (full throttle backup speeds).

Dropbox

Another cloud computing service I use is Dropbox. While Dropbox’s conventional use is storing documents in the cloud, it can also be used as an excellent automated backup system. The way I use Dropbox on my MacBook Pro is that I save all of my documents in my Dropbox folders.

How To Back Up My Mac

I decided to mimic the default folders that appear in the Home folder on macOS, including Music, Photos, and Documents. I then made shortcuts to those folders, and I make sure I save everything in them. Dropbox then automatically syncs those documents in the cloud.

Mac Time Machine

My documents are not only synced (backed up) in the cloud automatically, they’re also accessible via their iOS app. That means I can easily access all of my documents on my iPhone or iPad using Dropbox’s free iOS app. Just like Backblaze, their service is incredibly affordable. They have a free account that comes with 2GB, a $9.99/mo account that comes with 1TB (1,000 GB), and a $15/user/mo business account that comes with 1TB (1,000 GB).