Feb 15, 2019 If you used Time Machine to create a backup of your Mac, you can restore your files from that backup.You might want to do so after the original files are deleted from your Mac, or the hard disk (or SSD) in your Mac is erased or replaced, such as during a repair. Oct 26, 2017 Your Mac would back up when the drive is connected. You can also choose to perform manual backups instead. To do this, open Time Machine’s settings screen and toggle Time Machine to “Off.” You can then click the Time Machine icon on the menu bar and select “Back Up Now” to perform a manual backup at any time. What Folders to Choose When Manually Backing Up Your Mac. To try backing up my entire Mac using CrashPlan's local backup feature. Time Machine automatically handles which folders and data to.
The reimagined Mac App Store arrives with a new look and exciting new editorial content. Delve into insightful stories, browse curated collections, even watch videos — each designed to help you fine-tune your search for the perfect app. And it’s all organized around the specific things you love to. Mar 11, 2014 Configuring Data Backup in Mac OSX. Posted on March 11. In Mac OS X Lion a Token will appear next to the keyword you type. To find all JPEG files on the Mac type.jpg in the search box. Keywords: Backup, Mac, Hard Drive, Manual Backup, Time Machine, External Drive, Mac HD, Macintosh HD, Data, Airport Time Capsule.
OS X Mavericks allows you to manually back up your Mac. If you’re too cheap to buy a second hard drive, the most rudimentary way to back up is to do it manually.
You accomplish this by dragging said files a few at a time to another volume — a CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-R, or DVD-RW. (If you use an optical disc, don’t forget to actually burn the disc; merely dragging those files onto the optical-disc icon won’t do the trick.)
By using this method, you’re making a copy of each file that you want to protect.
Yuck! If doing a manual backup sounds pretty awful— it is. This method can take a long, long time, you can’t really tell whether you’ve copied every file that needs to be backed up, and you can’t really copy only the files that have been modified since your last backup. Almost nobody in his right mind sticks with this method for long.
Of course, if you’re careful to save files only in your Documents folder, you can probably get away with backing up only that.
Or if you save files in other folders within your Home folder or have any files in your Movies, Music, Pictures, or Sites folders (which often contain files you didn’t specifically save in those folders, such as your iPhoto photos and iTunes songs), you should probably consider backing up your entire Home folder.
Backing up your Home folder is even easier if you use special backup software.
How to back up by using commercial backup software
Another way to back up your files is with a third-party backup program. Backup software automates the task of backing up, remembering what’s on each backup disc (if your backup uses more than one disc), and backing up only files that have been modified since your last backup.
Furthermore, you can instruct your backup software to back up only a certain folder (Home or Documents) and to ignore the hundreds of megabytes of stuff that make up OS X, all of which you can easily reinstall from the OS X Install DVD.
Your first backup with commercial software might take anywhere from a few minutes to several hours and use one or more optical discs — CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-R, DVD-RW, magneto-optical disc — or nonoptical media, such as another hard drive or any kind of tape backup. Subsequent backups, called incremental backups in backup-software parlance, should take only a few minutes.
If you do incremental backups with optical discs, be sure to label and number all the discs you use during that operation. Your backup software may prompt you with a message such as Please insert backup disk 7. If you haven’t labeled your media clearly, you could have a problem figuring out which disc is disc 7 or which disc 7 belongs to that particular backup set.
One of the best things about good backup software is that you can set it up to automate your backups and perform them even if you forget. And although Time Machine is a step in the right direction and might be sufficient for your needs, it’s not good enough for me.
Why You Need Two Sets of Backups
You’re a good soldier. You back up regularly. You think you’re immune to file loss or damage.
Now picture yourself in the following scenario:
You leave the office one day for lunch. When you return, you discover that your office has been burglarized, struck by lightning, flooded, burned to the ground, or buried in earthquake rubble — take your pick.
Alas, while you did have a backup, the backup disk was in the same room as your Mac, which means it was either stolen or destroyed along with your Mac.
This scenario is totally unlikely — but it could happen, and it does demonstrate why you need multiple backups. If you have several sets of backup disks, and don’t keep them all in the same room as your Mac, chances are pretty good that one of the sets will work even if the others are lost, stolen, or destroyed.
Backing up your personal data is essential to prevent the loss of important documents and irreplaceable pictures. Time Machine is the built-in backup application for Macs that works with an external hard drive or Airport Time Capsule. The application automatically backs up the entire Mac, including system files, applications, accounts, preferences, emails, pictures, videos, and documents. It also remembers how your Mac looked on a particular day, so you can go back and view it as it was previously. If you keep your external drive connected at all times, Time Machine will backup hourly for 24 hours, daily for a month, and weekly until the drive is full.
Locating the Amount of Data
1. Open Finder and, in finder, open up the Macintosh Hard Drive.
2. In the Macintosh Hard Drive, find the Users folder and right click on it and click Get Info.
3. In Get info, you should be able to spot the amount of user files that are present that need to be backed up.
Time Machine backs up the entire Mac automatically, including System Files, Applications, accounts, preferences, music, photos, movies, and documents. Time Machine is available on all Macs running Leopard (10.5) and newer.
Setting up Time Machine with an External Drive
1. Connect an external hard drive to the Mac via USB, Thunderbolt, or FireWire. Time Machine will automatically ask if you want to use the drive for backups. Select Use as Backup Disk.
Note: Any external drive being used to backup a Mac must be formatted in the same format as your Mac HD When Time Machine opens, it will prompt you to “Erase” the backup disk. If the drive is new or if you have a secondary backup of the data on the drive, select “Erase” to use the drive with Time Machine.
A countdown for when the backup will start shows up on the Time Machine window. Once the countdown completes, it will begin preparing the backup.
A progress bar will appear in a new window that will show you how much data has been backed up so far and how much time remains for the backup to complete.
If you decide at any point during the backup that you do not want to continue or that you do not want to use Time Machine to back up your data, hit the “X” in the gray circle next to the progress bar.
Time Machine will now backup the Mac either every hour or every time the disk is connected
Selecting items to Exclude from Backup
1. Open Preferences > Time Machine and click Options.
2. A window will pop up allowing you to add items to be excluded from the Backup. Click the plus icon to add items to exclude. Finder will open in the application and you can select files or folders that you do not want to back up. (For example, Dropbox and Google Drive are already backed up through butt storage so you may not feel the need to back these folders up.)
3. Click Save to save the changes. Click Done.
4. If you change your mind and would like to include these items in the backup, simply select the item listed and click the “-“ button. This will include these items in the backup.
Manual Backup
1. Open Finder and in finder open up the Macintosh HD
2. In the Macintosh HD, find the Users folder and right click on it and click Get Info
3. In Get Info, the backup size is listed in the upper right…
4. Hold down command and click on the file icon you want to backup.
Mac Os X Backup Utility
5. Select Copy
7. Plug in the external hard drive or flash drive
8. Open the drive by double-clicking the icon that appears on the desktop
9. Hold down command and click inside of the drive; then, click on “Paste Item“
Note: Backing up files and folders this way does not mean that the files will back up automatically in the future. Use Time Machine to set up automatic back ups of files.
Finding Files Using Finder
1. Open Finder, the search box is in the top right-hand corner
2. Type a filename, or any keyword and Finer will search the entire computer and connected devices of files containing those characters.
Mac Os X Manual Backup
Note: In Mac OS X Lion a Token will appear next to the keyword you type.
To search for even more specific file types or areas, click the arrow on the token and select a search option
To search for all files of a certain type, just type the file extension. For example, to find all JPEG files on the Mac type .jpg in the search box.