How to Set up & Use Time Machine to Backup your Mac - Full Tutorial 2024

If you still don't use the time machine feature on your Mac, you're making a huge mistake. In this tutorial video: I will show you how to set up and use Time Machine backups on your MacBook. After watching this video, you will know everything about time machine backups on the macOS.

I will give you my advice about what type of external drive is better to use with a Time Machine. And finally, I will share with you my own system that I use on my Mac to fully protect my data and always have multiple copies of my MacBook Data and System even if my house will burn or my external drive will be stolen.

Using Time Machine backup on your Mac is highly recommended. You see the lifetime of every internal SSD is limited, and you never know when it will fail. Even a new MacBook can randomly have issues with its SSD drive.

Actually, Time Machine already saved me several times. I'm using this feature for a lot of years now, and I really do find it useful. You don't need this feature until the day your MacBook internal SSD will be dead.

If you want to protect your data, this video is made for you.

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@ArthurBrassart

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Timecodes:
0:00 - What this video is about
0:39 - Why you should use Time Machine Backup
1:30 - What is Time Machine
2:38 - How to Set up Time Machine
3:39 - How to use Time Machine
4:36 - Restore your data on a new Mac
4:56 - Time Machine Backup Tips
5:46 - What drive to choose for Time Machine
7:25 - My 3 rules for Time Machine Backups
8:51 - Why I don't use iCloud for Backups...

#backup #tutorial #timemachine

[eratanasena]

"The cloud doesn't exist. It's always someone's computer" If only more people understand this!

[StratsRUs]

'Old School' spinny External Drives are fine really.Mine have been totally reliable, though it's good to get the newest, modern connector to future proof them.
Thank you for an EXCELLENT video !

[rideSYV]

Great video! Thanks!! I just set it up today.

[katebeedot]

Some time ago the photos in the mac Photos App were lost and the app is empty (due to transferral on old SSD which did not work), but the lost photos are on my iPhone and they're still in the cloud.
As my macair 2013 definitely needs a backup will TM fetch the lost photos from iCloud the photos and put them into the empty app? Need to get this fixed as I have a new untouched macair. What will happen to the old macair once I activate the new one? Messy and maybe silly situation I know.
Thanks a lot for any help 😊

[iml]

Do you have a video to demonstrate how to duplicate a Time Machine file from one external drive to another. I want to copy files to a newer and more reliable external drive.

[helenhiggs]

Was hoping you could come up with a better solution than plugging in an external drive. I tried using a NAS many years ago, which wasn't reliable, so I bought a Time Capsule. This worked wirelessly and perfectly for 10 years. When it died I found Apple had stopped making them. Tried the NAS again, and it ran for 3 months before crashing. It's been crashing ever since. So now the solution seems to be chaining my portable laptop to a wired hard drive. A distinctly backward step. Thanks for the information anyway, and if you are anyone has a wireless solution, I'd love to hear it

[jaygre]

THANK YOU.. this information video is very easy to understand and implement. I have subscribed to your content. (only correction I would ask for is clarity of video is kind of fuzzy, though your instructions are very informative. Thank you Mr. Brassart.

[Sammyify]

Hello, I just got a New Seagate external drive for my MacBook as. Christmas gift. I'm wanting to store videos on it.
For the life of me I can't get the external drive to cooperate with the MacBook.
Could you please tell me what I need to do?

[Whatever]

How does this work if laptop is stolen? you buy a new and how do you then restore?
Also can you make backups in the cloud, so even the backup disk gets stolen.

[sarinsahil]

Thank you for this video. I am on M1 Mac 14" MacBook Pro/Sonoma 14.5 and using Time Machine to backup on a Backup Plus Slim 2 TB (APFS Case Sensitive). I want to restore my entire system to a previous backup/snapshot. In recovery mode, unlike the option it generally shows it instructs me to : Reinstall OS and Recover from Migration Assistant. Is there any way to solve this? Am I missing something?

My intention is create backups every week and be able to recover my system to a previous date in case something stops working.

Thank you!

[ArikaPrice]

Hello! Do you offer one on one help? My data on my sad card was completely wiped!!

[AnonymousPerspective]

How do you backup an external hard drive to time machine and restore an external hard drive from time machine?

[Alex]

I'm only able to backup in safe Mode, otherwise it always pops up an error. Anyone knows how to solve this?

[christianalbarran]

great set up man! just have a question: if i store my data in one external drive and then i backup my mac in a bigger drive, it will include the other external drive?

[familyschaeffer]

Hi Arthur, nice and informative video. I have a lot of photos (over 100K) that I process using Lightroom and Photoshop. I have them stored not on my Mac's 1TB SSD, but rather an external 8TB HD. Is Time Machine only backing up the OS files and other files that reside on the Mac's 1TB HD, or is it also backing-up my external HD? I suppose I can go into Time Machine Settings and explore. Is it possible to go into Time Machine Settings and have it back-up everything on the Mac and external HD, and store the back-up on the external HD? Then I suspect I would need to make a back-up of the external HD with another 8TB HD. Thank you in advance for your guidance.

[sboy]

I have used the same inexpensive Toshiba 2 TB/ 7200 rpm unit for TimeMachine since 2015. It has saved my butt at least once, , maybe twice?

[thomasjacques]

my 1TB external HD is getting full. Should I do anything? Or just let the SW manage it?

[beats]

Thanks a lot Arthur, I own a 4TB MacBook Pro M1 and back my files to an external 4TB SSD. I recently found that my external SSD was full and that backups could no longer be completed. You mentioned in one of your reply posts that there is a setting adjustment to allow Time Machine to automatically delete old backups to make room for new ones. I just can't find this setting menu. Thanks for any assistance.

[SenZationalDesignsCreations]

So it erased my older backups and I never wanted it to. Those were memories (photos and videos) I can't get back. Is there a way to get deleted ones back?

[amadeuszmurek]

Do backup include custom icons and backgrounds for folders?