By plugging in an external HD and backing everything up to Time Machine on a regular basis, you’ll create a copy of it that you can use in case you lose your data for any reason (it happens, believe us).

It’s a good idea to do this regularly even if you don’t plan on wiping your hard drive.

This will create a copy of your internal hard drive and write it onto the external one. Typically, you’ll want to plug in an external hard drive and select that.

Choose the disk you’d like to use to back up your computer.

Click Select Backup Disk, located in the top-middle of the window.

Select the Time Machine icon in the System Preferences folder.

Open System Preferences, located on the Apple Menu bar.

Here’s how you use it to back up your computer: Read Related Article: Hard Disk Drive vs. Whether you’re getting rid of the computer or wiping your hard drive to fix an error, the best way to back up your Mac is to use Time Machine.Įssentially, this is a tool that Apple created to help people create a “copy” of their computer that could be accessed at a later date. Before you even think about wiping your hard drive, make sure that you have everything backed up.Īfter all, even if you don’t want the computer anymore, you probably want all of the stuff on it.Īnd once you restore your computer to factory settings, all your photos, videos, documents, and downloads are going to be gone.

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