Summary
- Time Machine is a free and native built-in backup feature available on all Mac models that allows you to create incremental backups, restore your Mac, and browse files.
- Get started by connecting a suitable Time Machine drive, then heading to System Settings > General > Time Machine and using the “Add Drive” button to create your first backup.
- Future backups should take place automatically whenever you connect your drive, which you should do often to make sure you have a current backup of your Mac.
All Mac users can make use of Time Machine to create local backups and keep data safe. If you don’t have a Time Machine backup, you should create one right now. Here’s how.
What Is Time Machine?
Time Machine is a backup feature that’s been built into every version of macOS (formerly OS X) since OS X 10.5 Leopard. It received an overhaul in 2016 with the release of macOS 11 Big Sur to coincide with Apple’s move to the new APFS file system, but it’s remained largely unchanged since 2007.
You don’t need to “install” anything to use Time Machine, it’s a part of the operating system. Once you’ve set up Time Machine, the contents of your Mac’s internal drive will be backed up to an external location.
Future backups are incremental, which means that only changes (like new or modified files) will be copied. Subsequent backups will take less time as a result. There are ways you can speed up Time Machine backups, like backing up more often so that less data has to be copied each time.
Time Machine is a background process, which means you can connect to your backup drive and go about your day while your Mac backs everything up in the background.
You can browse your Time Machine drive to find files that you may have long deleted. You can also choose to restore a new Mac from a Time Machine backup or restore your existing Mac in the event of a data loss incident.
What You Need for Time Machine
You only need two things to use Time Machine. First is the Mac that you want to back up, and the second is a target destination for your backup. Usually, this takes the form of an external drive (which is what we’ll be focusing on today).
The bigger the drive, the more files you can store, and the more historical backups you’ll have access to. Apple recommends a drive that’s at least twice the size of your Mac’s internal drive. Time Machine will overwrite the oldest files once it runs out of space.
Drive type and interface speed are also worth consideration. Hard drives are cheap but they are slow and prone to failure. Solid-state drives are faster but cost more. The interface you choose can also dramatically affect how long your backups take to complete or how long it takes to fully restore your Mac. We’d recommend avoiding old USB 2.0 drives for this reason.
It’s possible to use a Time Machine drive to both store files and backups at the same time. To do this, launch Disk Utility (under the Applications > Utilities folder) and select your drive from the list on the left. Now use the “Partition” button to create appropriately-sized partitions and label them accordingly.
Partitioning an external drive in this manner usually means that you will lose all data that’s currently on the drive. Proceed with caution!
How to Back Up Your Mac With Time Machine
To start using Time Machine, decide which drive you’d like to use and connect it to your Mac.
Head to System Settings > General > Time Machine and click “Add Backup Disk” or use the “+” plus button. Select your target drive (or target partition, if you’re using the same drive to store files) when prompted to do so.
You’ll be asked whether or not you’re happy for the drive to be erased for the purposes of creating a Time Machine backup. Consider this your last warning that you’ll lose anything on the drive if you proceed.
macOS will go ahead and create a new Time Machine backup drive. Once complete, your Mac will start backing everything up. Be patient. This will take a long time since your Mac will have to copy the entire contents of its drive to your target disk.
You’ll see the progress of your backup under the Time Machine section of System Settings. You can also click on the Time Machine icon in the menu bar at the top of the screen to see more options.
When the backup is done, treat your Time Machine drive like any other and safely eject it by clicking on the “Eject” icon in Finder’s sidebar.
Performing Future Time Machine Backups
By default, your Mac should start to back up your Mac every time you connect your Time Machine drive. You shouldn’t have to manually initiate the backup, just plug in the drive, wait, and eject it when done. Use the “Time Machine” icon in the menu bar to see the progress of a backup, or choose “Skip This Backup” if you want.
You should aim to back up your Mac as often as you can (within reason). Once a week is usually fine for most people. Your Mac will eventually bug you to make a Time Machine backup once a few weeks have passed, so if you’re particularly forgetful you can rely on this notification as a reminder.
If you keep your drive permanently connected, it will back up every hour unless you decide otherwise.
Configure Time Machine Options for More Control
Within the System Settings > General > Time Machine menu you will find the “Options” button. Click it and you’ll see options for backup frequency (assuming your drive is always connected) and whether or not backups should complete when your Mac is on battery power (if you have a MacBook).
You’ll also be able to exclude locations using the “Exclude from Backups” list. Click the “+” plus button and navigate to a folder that you do not want to back up.
For example, I have excluded my Downloads folder, virtual machines (VMs) created with Parallels, and the applications installed on those VMs. This saves a lot of space for files I don’t need and virtual machines I frequently delete.
One quirk with Time Machine’s exclusions is that macOS automatically adds the target drive to the list of exclusions, but this only appears when the drive is connected (visible in the screenshot above).
Accessing Time Machine Files
Time Machine lets you browse your files as if you’re going back in time, hence the name. To do this, first connect your Time Machine drive to your Mac and then launch the “Time Machine” application (under the Applications folder). You can also use the Time Machine icon in the menu bar to “Browse Time Machine Backups.”
You will now be presented with a timeline on the right of the screen and a Finder window in the middle. Scroll back in time and find a file or folder you want to restore. Click on it, then click “Restore” to put the item back on your current drive.
You can also browse your Time Machine drive as you would any other external hard drive using Finder by copying and pasting the files you want to recover.
Restoring Your Mac From a Time Machine Backup
If you buy a new Mac or something happens to your current Mac, Time Machine makes it easy to get everything back to normal.
When you first turn your Mac on (or boot after reinstalling macOS or resetting your Mac to factory settings), you’ll be able to choose the option to restore from Time Machine backup. Connect your drive, follow the prompts, and you’re off to the races.
If you’ve already set up the Mac in question, you can do the same using Migration Assistant. This is an app that lives in the Applications > Utilities folder. Connect your Time Machine drive then launch Migration Assistant and select “From a Mac, Time Machine backup, or Startup disk” when asked where you want to import from.
Select your Time Machine drive followed by a backup and follow the instructions. Intel-based Mac models can access this option using Recovery Mode.
Why Bother With Time Machine?
It should be pretty obvious by now, but Time Machine can help prevent data loss by copying your data to an external drive. Despite macOS also syncing the contents of your Documents and Desktop folders to iCloud, this is no substitute for a proper Time Machine backup.
Time Machine is free, all you need to do is supply a drive. It works natively with your Mac, which means macOS can put everything back where it belongs if you change your computer or lose your data. After the initial setup, it’s an easy “set and forget” backup solution.
The ability to browse your entire backup history is also handy, just in case you delete a file that you later want to recover.
There are Time Machine alternatives but we’d recommend you start off with Apple’s solution first before moving on to something else. While your first backup completes, why not check out a few of the best single-purpose Mac apps?
