(Complete Guide) How to Backup Your Mac to an External Hard Drive

The Importance of Backing Up Your Mac to an External Hard Drive

Backing up your Mac is just as important as backing up any other kind of computer. After all, your Mac contains all of your important files, photos, and memories. If something happens to it, you could lose everything.

The best destination to back up your Mac is an external hard drive. There are many advantages to backing up your Mac to an external hard drive. Perhaps the most important advantage is that you protect your files in case of a computer crash or other disaster. If your internal hard drive fails, you'll still have copies of all your important files on the external drive.

Another benefit of backing up your Mac to an external hard drive is that it frees up space on your internal drive. If you have lots of files, photos, and other data, your internal drive can fill up quickly. By keeping some of that data on an external drive, you can prevent your internal drive from becoming overloaded.

Finally, backing up your Mac to an external hard drive gives you peace of mind. Knowing that your important files are safely stored offsite is very reassuring.

You may also like: [Best Backup Software for Mac (Free & Paid)](/mac-backup-recovery/best-backup-software-for-mac.html)

How to Back Up Your Mac to an External Hard Drive (with Time Machine)

There are many useful utilities that can help you back up your Mac to an external hard drive. This section will include both built-in macOS tools and third-party backup tools.

Tool 1: Time Machine

Time Machine is a built-in backup utility in macOS that helps users create backups of their entire system. It periodically saves snapshots of your system files, applications, and user data, allowing you to easily restore your Mac to an earlier state when needed.

On your Mac's menu bar, you'll see an Apple icon. Click it, then select "System Preferences." Find and open Time Machine. Now, you can follow the steps in this guide to learn how to use Time Machine to back up your Mac.

Step 1: Choose an external drive as your backup destination.

Click the “Select Disk” button, then choose the external hard drive you want to use.

Step 2: Start your first Time Machine backup.

Click “Use Disk,” then “Finish,” and Time Machine will begin its first backup. Depending on how much data you have, this initial backup could take some time.

Select the backup disk, then click "Use Disk".

Step 3: Choose what you want to back up.

After you select the backup disk, you can choose what to back up and exclude items that you don't need.

Step 4: Choose how often you'd like Time Machine to back up your Mac.

By default, Time Machine backs up hourly. However, you can change how often Time Machine backs up by clicking the Options button. Here, you can set how often you'd like Time Machine to back up.

Time Machine Prompt:

Tool 2: Todo Backup for Mac

Todo Backup for Mac is a professional backup tool that can help users back up files, folders, partitions, or even the entire system. Todo Backup can also assist in cloning hard drive and upgrading the hard drive. It has both Windows and Mac versions. Here we will show you how to use this tool by taking backing up a Mac to an external hard drive as an example.

First, connect the external hard drive to your Mac and make sure that your computer recognizes it. Then, download, install, and run Todo Backup on your Mac.

Now you're ready to back up your Mac according to the instructions.

Step 1. Launch and run Todo Backup for Mac. Click the first tab on the left – Backup, or directly click the + button at the bottom left to create a backup task - name your backup task, then click OK.

Step 2. Choose a backup destination, select where you want your Mac's files to be backed up, and how often you want it to automatically backup, then click OK.

Step 3. Add files and folders to your backup set.
Click Add Files+ to selectively add files and folders to your backup, then click the blue Start Backup button to back up your Mac to another drive or external device.

How to Back Up Your Mac Without Time Machine

There are several ways to back up your Mac without using Time Machine. One of the most common methods is by using iCloud or another cloud storage service. iCloud is a cloud storage service provided by Apple, offering 5GB of free storage and additional paid storage plans. You can use iCloud to back up your entire system or just select specific files.

To use iCloud to back up your Mac, you'll first need to enable iCloud Backup on your Mac. To do this, open System Preferences, then click the iCloud icon. Next, click "Options" next to iCloud Backup. Finally, check the box next to "Back Up Now."

Another cloud storage service that you can use to back up your Mac is Google Drive. It offers 15 GB of free storage, and you can opt for a paid plan if you need more space. To back up your Mac with Google Drive, first download and install the Google Drive application on your Mac. After that, launch the app and log in using your Google account. Finally, click on the "Backup" option and select the files you want to back up.

Aside from Time Machine, there are other methods to back up a Mac. This includes using Disk Utility or creating a bootable clone of your system.

What to Do Before Backing Up Your Mac to an External Hard Drive

Before backing up your Mac to an external hard drive, there are a few things you need to do.

1. You need to check the storage capacity of your external hard drive. Make sure it has enough space for the backup. 2. If the external hard drive is not formatted, you will need to format it. You can use Disk Utility to format the external hard drive. 3. Ensure that the external hard drive is connected to your Mac. Confirm that it is turned on and connected to your Mac via USB or Thunderbolt. 4. You need to make sure your Mac is connected to the internet. Time Machine requires an internet connection while performing backups.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

To back up your entire Mac to an external hard drive, you can use Apple's built-in Time Machine feature. Here's a step-by-step guide: 1. Prepare the external hard drive: Make sure it's large enough to store all your data and is connected to your Mac. 2. Format the hard drive: Open "Disk Utility" (found in "Applications" > "Utilities"), select your external hard drive, and click "Erase." Choose "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)" as the format and give the drive a name. 3. Enable Time Machine: Go to "System Preferences" > "Time Machine," and click "Open Time Machine Preferences." 4. Select the backup disk: In the Time Machine settings, click "Select Backup Disk..." and choose your external hard drive. 5. Start the backup: Click "Backup Now" to initiate the initial backup. After this, Time Machine will automatically perform backups at regular intervals. 6. Verify successful backup: You can check the backup progress in the Time Machine interface. Once complete, you can restore files or your entire system anytime through Time Machine. Please note that the first backup may take some time, depending on the amount of data you have. Subsequent backups will be faster, as they only backup changes made since the last backup.

You can use Time Machine to back up your entire Mac to an external hard drive. First, connect the external drive to your Mac and format it. Next, open Time Machine preferences and select the external drive as your backup disk. Finally, click "Backup Now" to initiate the backup process.

How do I back up specific files on my Mac to an external hard drive?

There are several ways to back up specific files on a Mac to an external hard drive. One method is to use iCloud or another cloud storage service. Another is to use Disk Utility or create a bootable clone of your system.