Choose your external drive from the list, and click Use Disk.Click the Select Backup Disk button in Time Machine.Now, in System Preferences, click Time Machine 3. Open Disk Utility, select your external drive, and choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled) for the Format. How to back up your Mac with Time Machine: All you need to use is an external storage device, one that’s at least twice as large as the amount of data you want to back up. Time Machine is the built-in backup app for Macs, designed to help you keep up-to-date copies of all your files. Click Erase Backing up your Mac with Time Machine Otherwise, choose Mac OS Extended or APFSĤ. If you want to be able to access the files on a Windows PC, select ExFat
Choose a formatting option from the Format dropdown menu. Select the drive from the list on the left, then click Eraseģ. Plug in an external drive, then open Disk Utility from Applications > UtilitiesĢ. How to prepare an external drive for Mac backups:ġ. First, though, you’ll need to make sure your drive is ready for backups, using macOS’s Disk Utility. It’s not sophisticated, and it’s only effective if you remember to do it. The most basic way of backing up data on a Mac is to hook up a USB drive and then just drag and drop files into it. It comes with one free fix, so you can decide whether it’s right for you or not. You can try MacKeeper for free to see for yourself.
So it’s a good idea to clear your Mac of unwanted apps before you make a backup. If you’re making a full backup of your Mac, the smaller it is, the quicker it will be.