How to Make Backups on Mac to Keep Your Data Safe

There is a phrase in the technological world that says that data that is not duplicated does not actually exist. With this phrase it comes to say that those files from devices such as computers that are only stored in them, can disappear with relative ease if you do not have a backup copy. That is why in this article we tell you how to make a backup on a Mac, so that you can have the guarantee that you will never lose anything.

mac backup

Full copies with Time Machine

What is it and prerequisites

Time Machine is a native Apple tool found in macOS and used to perform complete backups of your computer. This requires an external storage device. This can be of the following classes:

  • HDD or SSD hard drive. It is especially recommended to use one of the latter, as they have better data transfer speeds and are more secure, but ultimately you will get the same results with a mechanical hard drive.
  • USB drive.
  • Thunderbolt unit .
  • External FireWire unit.
  • AirPort Time Capsule.
  • Mac shared on the network as a destination for the copy of Time Machine.
  • Network Attached Storage Devices ( NAS ) supported via SMB.

With copies of Time Machine you can restore your Mac at any time without fear of losing data, as all your files and settings will be stored on it . In fact it is possible to load these copies on any other Mac, making this one look the same as the other. Something very useful if you have lost the computer or have acquired a new one.

Returning to the topic of the external hard drive, it will need to have a high capacity of internal memory to be able to store all the data. At a minimum it should be of the same capacity as your Mac, although a little more is always recommended. You can always have it connected to the equipment so that automatic copies can be made or you can only connect it when you are going to make the copy manually.

Steps to follow

copia seguridad mac time machine

  • Connect the external hard drive and select it as the backup disk. Generally, when connecting an external unit, a pop-up window appears asking about its purpose, and you can select the previous option here. If this is not the case, you must follow these steps:
    • See System Preferences> Time Machine
    • Click “Select backup disk”.
    • Select the external drive you want to use.

time machine mac

  • Click on the option that allows you to perform the backup.

It’s that easy to start saving backup copies of your Mac to an external drive. The process may take more or less time depending on the amount of data you have on the computer, although the first time will always be the one that takes the longest. You can continue using the equipment normally and when the process ends, you will be indicated by an on-screen notification. However, there is a trick to speed up copying in Time Machine .

By default Time Machine will make automatic copies every 24 hours . If the unit is connected to the Mac, you will be informed when this process begins and if not, you will be informed that it is not possible to do it if you do not connect it. On the other hand, it should be noted that the oldest copies will be eliminated to free up space, although for a time they will continue to be stored and hence the importance of the hard disk being of greater capacity than the Mac.

How to restore a copy of Time Machine

When the moment of truth arrives, in which you have no choice but to format your Mac or install a copy of your data in a new one, it’s time to know the process to extract that data from Time Machine and export it to your computer. To do this you must follow these steps:

  • Connect the storage drive where you housed copies of Time Machine to your Mac.
  • Turn on your Mac while holding down CMD + R and release when macOS Recovery starts. restaurar mac time machine
  • In the macOS Utilities window, click on “Restore from a Time Machine backup”.

restauracion mac time machine

  • Click Continue and when the restoration source is indicated, select the disk on which you made the copy.
  • Click Continue again and if the disk is encrypted you will be asked to unlock it using the administrator password that you used in the Time Machine configuration.

restauracion mac disco duro

  • Click Continue again until the destination disk selection appears .
  • Click Restore or Continue and if the computer has FileVault activated, you must enter the administrator password.

The process, like the copy process, could take minutes or even hours depending on the transfer speed. In any case, at the moment it finishes you will have to restart the Mac and you will find the computer again as it was when you made the backup.

Manual copies in iCloud and other cloud services

Cloud storage services can be tremendously useful for actions like backing up files on a Mac if you don’t have an external storage drive. On an iPhone or iPad we can make backups to iCloud in a really easy way. However in macOS there is no such option. Therefore we must resort to manual copies.

iCloud Drive

We recommend using iCloud Drive for this purpose because it is the native Apple system and that it is fully accessible from the Mac Finder, however it can also be done on other platforms such as Google Drive, OneDrive or Dropbox among others. It basically consists of manually copying all the folders, files and documents that you want to have protected and then uploading them to the cloud.

In addition to being more tedious and even slower, this has as its main drawback the fact that some established settings and parameters cannot be saved in the same way as with a full copy. However, there are some tricks for this, such as taking screenshots of those settings that you have established on your Mac and uploading them to the cloud in case one day you need to restore the equipment and want to check how you had everything previously. We insist that it is a process that can generate more laziness, but in the end it is the only alternative in many cases.