Back Up Your Mac: Complete Guide [2023]

🍎 Back in "the day," you were taught to have a data backup to protect against hardware failure or human error. Today, we have new threats like climate change, war, or someone hacking into your Apple ID, taking all your data hostage, and selling it back to you for a ransom! THAT is why we need to have an UPDATED conversation about how to back up your data. Think of iCloud as your parachute 🪂 It's going to protect you... probably 😬🤞 But if it doesn't, 😱 that's why we have an emergency chute (in case the 💩 hits the 🪭)

NOTE: You will need an external hard drive for this solution.

Think your old backup drive holds up?
Go to the App Store and Download BLACK MAGIC DISK SPEED TEST

If your drive shows a READ/WRITE Speed UNDER 200MB/sec, it's time to buy a new one.
All the drives you see below are Solid State Drives (SSDs).

👨‍💻 My Favorite 3 Hard Drives:

CHAPTERS:
00:00 Brief Introduction
00:55 My Backup Solution (Overview)
02:03 Using Black Magic Disk Speed Test to Test External Drive
02:36 How Much Storage Do I Need?
03:13 My Favorite Backup Drives
03:39 Format and Partition Your External Drive
04:45 Setup Time Machine
05:32 How to Use Time Machine (& its flaws)
07:12 Protecting Your Photo Library
09:32 Protecting Your Documents
10:00 Back Up Your Contacts
10:23 Back Up Music
10:48 Back Up Your Passwords
11:22 Back Up Calendar Data
12:34 Legacy Contact

WATCH:
How To Setup A Legacy Contact:

📌 What's Inside This Video?
1️⃣ A three-part comprehensive backup strategy for your Mac
2️⃣ Vital tips on selecting the right external hard drive for backups
3️⃣ Real-time examples showing the strengths and weaknesses of Time Machine
4️⃣ Special insights on how to back up your most valuable data, including photos, emails, and contacts
5️⃣ An overview of establishing a 'Legacy Contact' for your iCloud data
6️⃣ Step-by-step instructions on how to format your external hard drive correctly

📊 Key Takeaways
A modern backup strategy includes cloud solutions like iCloud, an offline backup, and a legacy contact. Performance check your existing external hard drive using Blackmagic Disk Speedtest. Time Machine is excellent but has its limitations, particularly with specific types of data like emails and photos. You should have an external clone of your photo library that stores the originals.

📞 Your Questions

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🔗 Keywords
#MacBackup #Apple #TimeMachine #iCloud #ExternalHardDrive #DataProtection #CyberSecurity #LegacyContact #TechTalkAmerica #AppleTutorial #BackupStrategy #MacOS #Technology

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🙏🏼 David A. Cox

[ELEKTROGOWK]

Partition or Volume for TimeMachine? Which one should be used?

[jsosa]

thx for all you do to help ppl that just would not no what to do God bless you

[FLYBOY]

common' man, i'm not going to do all that stuff...just back up to a hard drive on a regular schedule...way too complicated dave...thumbs up for the advice...

[chriscash]

If its not encrypted and someone gets a hold of your hard drive can't they access everything on the hard drive?

[RetreatIsNotAnOption]

Can you sync new photos to your back up drive with out using icloud?

[lianefrance]

David, help! I’ve been in the industry for decades and have had a complete, redundant backup strategy that’s been great. I want to upgrade my macOS to Sequoia next year but found out my prime, daily backup software is no longer supported by its developer. PLEASE tell me what software I can use now that has the functionality of my old Tri-Edre BACKUP? All my data is kept on external drives and in the cloud in iDrive. CCC backs up my MacHD to a dedicated drive, with Tri-Edre BACKUP, I can back up an entire drive, partitions, or individual folders as needed to my other external drives. Thank you!!!

[higherbeats]

dear david, to encrypt an ssd partition is probably not so good for the ssd lifetime. bzt why dont you encrypt a timemachine backUp ? thx in advance

[gailbarlow]

I have a new 8tb drive coming today. As it is not SSD what do you choose as the format please? Mac OS Extended? Sorry, not a systems girl 😞 I like the idea of it being split for Time Machine and normal backup. I will carefully follow your instructions if I can see what format I need! It is to backup new MacBook Pro after my old lady 12 year old iMac became unstable. My files are on iCloud at the moment. Thank you.

[serafinsilva]

Will backing up the music library by a manual backup preserve my playlists?

[Dulcilady]

Thank you for this video. As usual, you’ve explained things so they’re easy to grasp. 😊

[starbux]

Which online service would you recommend to do a full backup of my Mac? In addition to TM, I subscribe to Backblaze

[RustyX]

Love this video David. So very helpful. Thank you!

[lightyagami]

This is great stuff, very informative. Thank you!
I did the Blackmagic disk speed test on the various external hard drives I have.
Interestingly, my oldest hard drive gets the best read & write speeds of about 98 MB/s. Its format is MacOS Extended (Journaled).
A pretty new hard drive I have only gets about 60 MB/s. I have it formatted as ExFAT.
I couldn't even do the speed test on my last hard drive. This is the one I use together with time machine and its format is APFS (case sensitive).
Any thoughts on why my speeds vary so much/why they aren't very impressive? Maybe the format type also plays a role?
Thanks. :)

[bettycarlisle]

I like easy to follow but a bit fast. Stoping and starting I was successful. Thank you

[paraflamacue]

Always great help David, Thank Still on Monterey, Photo back up does not show Synced with iCloud on my Mac (BU to Ext drive complete), but Does Show on my iPhone. Have I missed something?

[johnkaras]

Great video, as always! David, have you ever thought about writing a how to book? Just a suggestion.

[Coatsey]

Meant constructively, and I'm sure you're correct me if I'm wrong, iCloud insist that it stores the data locally as well as online. It's why I stopped using iCloud. It does not save space locally, only Apple photos does that.

[MrMgd]

Thanks, it is always confusing the right way to do things and keep sane! Time to backup!

[dolphinpmo]

Thank you David this is all very useful. Noob here. I managed to do a backup of all my iCloud Photos folder to my external SSD. HOWEVER: when I went back to my local Photos drive, there were only a few hundred photos, compared to the thousands on my iCloud Drive. I am hesitant to go back to the next step to make the Mac Photo drive as the new System Photo Library, fearful that the new drive with limited photos will override the complete one. Will the iCloud Photos on my SSD be added back to the library on my Mac? (Pardon my ignorance here.)

[DeborahJoshua]

I watched a video somewhere, and it said to NOT mess with the part that says "internal." Well... I accidentally added and renamed something in Internal. I don't know what I did... and I don't know how to undo it ... and I don't know how serious this is. Can anyone help?