How can I back up my Mac without Time Machine?

How to Back Up Your Mac Without Time Machine

Do you know the best way to back up all your important Mac data to an external hard drive or USB drive? When it comes to Mac backups, most users would naturally think of the built-in Mac backup tool – Time Machine. While Time Machine supports Mac users in automatically backing up files and data on the Mac after the initial setup, some users find it too complicated and wish for a simpler method to create a Mac data backup. Hence, how to back up a Mac without Time Machine becomes the next question. If you're looking for an easy way to back up files and data on your Mac, just follow these steps to perform a full backup of your Mac data without Time Machine.

Method 1: Back Up Your Mac Without Time Machine in 3 Steps
Let Time Machine software do the job for you!

If you find Time Machine too complicated, try AOMEI Backupper Mac, a backup software for Mac like Time Machine. It allows you to back up Mac to external hard drive or other storage devices in only 3 steps.

You can search for “Tool Todo Backup for Mac” on Google, or download and install the software for free to back up your Mac data without Time Machine.

Step1: Launch and run Todo Backup for Mac. Click the first Backup tab, or directly click the + button at the bottom left to create a backup task – name your backup task and then click OK.

Step 2: Set the backup destination, choose where to save the Mac file backup, set the automatic backup frequency, etc., and then click “OK”.

Step 3: Add files and folders to your backup set.
Click on Add Files+ to choose which files and folders you want to include in your backup, then click the blue Start button to back up your Mac to another drive or external device.

Method 2: Back Up Your Mac Manually Without Time Machine

The second method is to manually back up your Mac data to an external storage device without using Time Machine. Connect an external hard drive or USB drive to your Mac, and then follow these steps to back up your Mac data right away:

1. Click on Finder > Preferences > Check the Hard Disk option under Show these items on the desktop.
2. Open the backup disk and create a folder, naming it something like 'My Backups'.
3. Navigate to the Mac's hard drive, open the Users folder, and select all the files and data you wish to back up. Then, drag them into the 'My Backups' folder.
4. Wait for the copying process to finish.

That's it! The only downside is that if you have a lot of large files, the process of copying them over to your new storage one by one could take a long time.