Wow! Thank you! We didn't know how to restore files after backing them up to Time Machine. Thank you!!! So helpful. We've saved this video for later in case we need to see it again
Gary, you are the absolute best and my first stop on all questions Mac. I have bought over 40 and I go back to the 2E with Apple. I still own a perfectly functioning 2GS with an Applied Engineering 8 Mhz. accelerator card, and a Mac 7600 with a G3 accelerator card.
This was one of your best informational videos, i love time machine and time capsule and apple, iPhones, Apple TV and MBPros, when i got off Hewlett Packard in 2012 it was the best thing i ever did and i never looked back.
I am commenting on your video mainly because it is so well done and easy to go through the questions. You probably have a video on how to do that and I would love to find out how. My problem was that I had an older Mac Pro and a 4TB SSD that I used as a Time Machine. That drive was accidentally disconnected for quite a while and when I purchased a New Mac Pro, I needed to use it, but it just wouldn't back up my files, so I used a different 4TB drive and created a new Time Machine. Here was the problem. I tried everything to reformat the drive using the advice of TH-camrs and couldn't get it done on the old machine and thought to install it along with my larger SSD on the new Mac Pro where I would reformat everything and then install everything new. Still, the drive was bulletproof as it was labeled Master Boot. So, I just restarted my Mac Pro with everything installed now and have left the Time Machine drive installed where you are given a choice of "eject," "initialize," or "erase." After so many failures I just chose "eject" and then opened up Disk Utility and tried to erase it and reformat it any way other than "Master Boot." It worked and it took seconds. You have to understand that I had done everything including things said in passing like attaching it to a Windows machine and even then that machine would not do anything. There you go. The question and answer that I was looking for but could not find. Now I can actually use a good and fast 4TB SSD that I was about to toss.
I used to use Time machine but quit doing it as the old drive was suspect after many years. I think I will get a drive and set it up again. Thanks for prompting me on this,
I’m thinking of using boot camp to use windows on my iMac. I would want to use a drive to turn back the clock, if I decide I no longer want windows on my computer. How would I use time machine for that, would I restart to the full previous stored version? How? You showed us how to go back to an older file, but what about system wide, or what I’m looking for?
Lots of factors there. You should just be able to delete the Boot Camp partition and go back to having macOS have the whole drive. But you'll need to think on your feet when the time comes. I haven't had to do that in probably 10+ years, and a lot has changed. Otherwise, you can always just wipe the drive, reinstall macOS from recovery mode, and then restore your user account and apps from Time Machine (it asks when you set up macOS).
can I use the very same external HD to back up 2 Mac OSX systems...? in my case my MacBook runs Mavericks (1/3) and High Sierra (2/3) ... if yes how should I proceed...? maybe I have to apply 2 partitions and Time Machine back up Mavericks to one and High Sierra to another... right...?
If you are talking about a networked drive, then yes, people do that all the time. But if you have to physically move the drive from one Mac to another, then just get another drive for each to make it easier. Of course if you are using iCloud Drive and storing everything in there, you may only really need to backup one Mac since they would all have the same files on them, right?
@@macmost well, by now I'm using the same external HD (1T) divided in 2 partitions (500) to Time machine back up both systems ("Mavericks" & "High Sierra") I mean one system one partition ... thanks for your reply...! actually "work in progress", 6 hrs remaining...! for High Sierra...!
Thanks for the video. I know TM is supposed to erase oldest versions when drive fills up, but mine is now saying it cannot complete backup because of lack of disk space. Why will it not just erase old versions? 500gig MacBook - 1tb dedicated external time machine drive.
There is a limit. It removes older versions of each file, but keeps one copy at least (otherwise it wouldn't be a very good backup). So as you delete files and replace them with others there is one copy of the deleted file still around. That's how you fill up a Time Machine drive. How fast that happens depends on the type of things you do on your Mac. 1TB is definitely much too small of a drive for Time Machine in your case.
I’m having an issue... On an ext HD, Time Machine has run out of space and thus stopped backups entirely. I get a pop up that say something like “Time Machine doesn’t have enough space to back up etc..” Why is this happening? I want Time Machine to ditch older files that aren’t needed and then continue to backup my recent files. This issue has been a huge blunder and time waster. I’m spending weeks researching how to fix this issue and wether or not I should ditch TM for different backup software? Beyond frustrating! FYI there are other files on the drive that TM is on. And why can’t I just delete old TM files? I have ZERO use for backups from 2 months ago, let alone 2 years ago, makes no sense.
Gary - how does Time Machine handle files and folders that are within a Cloud service that is supported on the Mac, such as Dropbox and OneDrive? For example, what happens If you do a Time Machine restore to set up a new computer and your old computer includes cloud storage files and folders that are available “on demand” which appear in the Finder on the old computer with an icon next to them indicating that the file needs to be downloaded? Are then any guidelines and/or additional steps that should be taken when migrating cloud storage files and folders to a new computer? Any help is appreciated.
Time Machine can only back up files that are present on the local drive. But it probably backs up most if not all because of how that works. I did a video on this: th-cam.com/video/6WvwfapIYxE/w-d-xo.html
@@macmost Thank you for the response, Gary. The second video was helpful. I think the problem is most apparent when you migrate to a new computer and your old computer is set up to use both local files/folders stored on the hard drives but has also offloaded other files/folders to the Cloud. As you indicated, you can still “see” those offloaded items (marked by the Cloud and down arrow) in Finder and easily pull them down when needed.
I realize you must have enough hard drive on your new computer to match your old computer. But what happens when you do a restore of Time Machine on the new computer? How does the restore handle the on-demand files? Do the offloaded items still appear in Finder on the new computer? Or are these folders must missing on the new computer and you have to set them up again using the Cloud service? How do you safely get back to where you were on your old computer? It gets worse when you have multiple cloud services involved in the setup. I use OneDrive primarily because it provides 1TB of free storage plus I have other files on Dropbox. It gets very complicated. I ended up in this situation when I got a new M1 Mac Mini which had more limited hard disk space than my old iMac. If I did it again, I would just pay for extra hard disk storage!!
You strongly suggest dedicating a drive for Time Machine. Can I partition a large drive and dedicate part of it to Time Machine? Do you see any downside to this strategy?
Thanks for the video! If I do a full back up of my laptop and for some reason I go back to restore from time machine …does it also restore that backups iOS that it was created at that time or just restore files on current iOS? If I go to restore point that was older iOS will it restore how,it looked back then files and iOS version?
Are you backing up your iPhone to your Mac? If so, that backup file is on your Mac and it would be restored at the same time along with every other file. But iOS backups don't back up the operating system, just your data. But what's your goal here? You don't need to restore your whole Mac just to restore your iPhone.
Hi Gary - thanks for another terrific video. Can you tell me whether I should back up Parallels using Time Machine, or will it quickly fill up my external hard drive? Thanks for your help
Hey Gary. Always useful information. thanks. I'm wondering if Time Machine can be used to back up non-OSX work drives to an external i.e. my photo/video drive to an external back up. Can I have Time Machine back up multiple sources to multiple targets? So, a basic OSX backup as usual but also a photo drive to its own back up drive, a video edit drive to it's own back up drive etc... Thanks fro your help
You need to use an empty drive. First, you can't back up data from the same drive -- that doesn't make sense for local reasons. Second, you want to let Time Machine control the entire drive. Just get a drive that is dedicated to your backup and nothing else.
Can't I just make two partitions in the drive so it does Time Machines backups and is used for storage? Also, can I use one drive for Time Machine backups with two MacBooks, an older one and a new one?
Hey Gary! Thanks for this video. Just purchased a new MacBook Pro M1 and want to restore from my older MacBook (2015), both are running BigSur. You showed in this video how to restore individual files, but do you have a video that shows how to restore ALL user data to a MacBook that currently has an iOS installed? If so, please point me to it when you have a chance. Thanks so much. Jeff.
You mentioned that you can use a single drive for multiple computers at 3:48. Do you need to partition the drive or do anything to it to allow it to separate the computers? I haven't been able to get a straight answer online or via Apple Tech Support - but when I plug in my drive to the router I'm only able to select a single one of my partitions to use for Time Machine. Can I remove the partitions all together an backup multiple computers over the network to the same disk without any additional partitioning?
Gary - Love your channel! I'm still trying to figure out how to best backup my MacBook Pro using Time Machine. I'm running both Catalina for legacy programs and Monterey for current apps. It seams that I need to run separate backups for each OS. Is there a better way to do this? Also, any tips on restoring a drive with dual operating systems would be appreciated. Thanks!
Question: Time Machine backup way back from 2014 Snow Leopard onto a 1TB WD drive... I didn't understand "backups" at all then and rather than formatting it via Disk Utility, the drive self formatted when I used Time Machine. My goal was to backup .jpg and .mov or .mp4 on my system to the hard drive so I could view and copy files with any other computer (Windows, Mac)... any way to retrieve the files now to see and copy them as usable to another computer or external drive?
Thanks Gary, very informative, I do have a specific question. I recently downloaded the latest version of Sonoma 14.6.1 on my iMac and found an issue with one of my programs, I've contacted Apple but they were unable to solve. Just curious, I do have a Time Machine backup prior to downloading this new version of Sonoma, Can I go back to that date and time and restore the old Sonoma version which was working just fine. Appreciate your comments. Regards Tony
Not easily, no. Did you contact the maker of that app about the problem? That would be the thing to do. You can't stop updates and leave your Mac frozen in time and with security updates and compatibility issues just to keep one app going.
Great job! And I know this is 3 years old, but I'm reaching out in case you still check messages on this video! In time machine, the "little" lines (before "today" or "right now" are not available to click on unless I click and hold down "Today," but once I let "today" go, I am unable to click on the little lines I see that are for yesterday. Any help on this would be greatly appreciated!
I just bought a new Mac mini. When I started it up and logged in as an Apple user, I noticed that the calendar and contacts from my old MacBook Pro had already populated those apps. My question is if I use the Migration Asst program from my MacBook Pro to transfer data from a Time Machine backup to my new Mac mini, will there be a bunch of duplicate entries in my calendar and contacts. Thanks
short, crisp and really useful. Excellent video. BUt have one question. What if your macbook runs out of power or battery or for some reason, you need to stop the backup and put off your laptop. Can one resume the back up again the next day? Please advise
It will just stop the backup and continue them the next time. But this rarely happens because if you have your MacBook connected to your external Time Machine drive, then why not have it connected to power at the same time?
@@macmost thanks a lot . I am finally buying a NAS for the same based on your recommendation in lesson 13 I think . Also for my 2 TB Mackbook pro , I think 6TB would be enough for time machine or should I increase the capacity?
I'm having a tough time finding out if I can backup different data on a single computer to separate external drives. Can this be done. Here's the scenario. I have regular household data on my desktop and I have my photo imagery files on the same desktop. I would like to use Time Machine to backup the household data on one external drive and have the photo image files backed up on the other external drive. I need to understand how to select the specific data (say the photo imagery data) and have Time Machine save it to the specific external hard drive I want?
That's how Time Machine works by default. Just set up the third drive to be your Time Machine backup. It should backup everything on your internal and external. Make sure in Time Machine settings you don't have your external listed in the Privacy settings (which would cause Time Machine to skip it). This is exactly my setup, in fact.
Gary, thanks for this material. I have subscribed and support you on Patreon. I am a newbie in every sense of the word. Here's my dilemma: I use two time machine backups as you mentioned... one at home and one at work. The one at work can be ejected easily by going to Finder, locating the drive and ejecting. The drive at home will occasionally work in the same way, but usually no matter how often you push on the eject symbol, you are told something is using the drive. If you Force Quit, there is a warning the drive isn't being ejected properly. Thoughts?
How do you back up the apps or software on your mac or does TM automatically backup everything you use on your device? E.G. your entire adobe creative suite.
It does, but that doesn't matter. If your Mac were to die or get stolen, you could just re-download the Adobe apps using Creative Cloud. No need to restore from a backup at all.
do you know of any way to compare time machine backups? So like a list of differences between them where we can see which files have been added, deleted or modified between 2 or more backups on our external disk so we can quickly check the differences between all our backups and change back any files that were mistakenly changed before it's too late and the oldest backup gets replaced as time passes as we may not have even noticed a change (deletion, addition or modification) on certain files that we may not want to remain as such? That would be a VERY VERY useful tool!!
How to view, restore a photo from Time Machine? (not whole library, it's huge ) Macbook drive mainly has pics and own videos, got 2 TB ssd for TM, ran OK, can open TM, see Pictures folder with Photos lib in it (just like macbook finder.) Click Photos library in mb Finder Pictures folder, see pics OK Click Photos in TM finder Pictures folder, it does not open Photos app (just a big dead file :) Thanks for great, concise video. And any explanation: If MB ssd full, delete some videos or pics I know are on TM, how do I find, see and restore just those?
Excellent video, but I have a question. It looks like the Time Machine stopped doing backups to the external drive 2 years ago on the Mac I am inspecting. It sounds like the external drive is broken (makes noise). However, Time Machine seems to be continuing to do back ups somehow. Does it default to the internal Mac drive for TM backups when the external gets corrupted? I’m confused.
Gary, the drive on my 3t Time Machine stopped working about a month ago, and ordered a 4T 3.5 Sata replacement. how would I copy the data from the old one onto the new one. (I haven't replaced yet). Love your videos..
So I have a Synology NAS being used as a TimeMachine Backup, the NAS says that it’s used 1.51 Th of my 2 TB quota. When I attempt a backup on my MAC, it initiated and then stops, saying there is only 376GB available and that it needs to back up 800 something GB to the time machine. I also have an atrocious amount of “other” files on my MacBook Pro in the amount of 218GB, Idk where the hell all these came from but I need them gone and I had thought I would have to back up, prior to deleting a bunch of files
I strongly recommend a dedicated drive for this. Get a large HDD (cheap per TB). If you use the drive for other purposes, then those files on the drive won't really be backed up (one drive = one point of failure).
Hi Gary! Thanks for this amazing video! Just wondering f you have a video (or if it's even possible) about backing up (time machine) multiple macs with just one drive. Would love to know! Thanks so much!
You can do that with no extra steps needed. Just use the same drive. But if these are stationary Macs, then get them each their own drive so they can be connected all the time. Even if they are laptops, if you are connecting them manually, just get each its own drive. But using one (big) drive is handy when it is connected as a network drive and you are using it backup laptop Macs .
Thanks for the wonderful and informative vid. A quick question , could Time Machine be used to restore a computer’s previous state . Let’s say, I have installed MS Office 365 into my Mac and I would like to use TimeMachine to go back to the state before MS Office was installed . The whole thing is like uninstall MS Office. Could Time Machine fulfil this function? Thanks in advance for your wonderful tips. 😊
Yes, using the Restore option in recovery mode. But you definitely don't want to do that to just uninstall Microsoft Office. That is way too much work with way too much risk for such a simple thing. Just uninstall it normally. Assuming you installed from the Microsoft download (not the Mac App Store) the instructions are here: support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/uninstall-office-for-mac-eefa1199-5b58-43af-8a3d-b73dc1a8cae3
I currently use Time Machine to backup my MacBook. I also do a weekly disk copy with SuperDuper to a separate drive. If I was to use iCloud fully, so all my data and photos were "in the cloud", would Time Machine still have everything backed up as it does now from the hard disk? With iCloud is all the data physically still on my Mac AND in iCloud or is it only brought back to the Mac when I want to update a file?
Not sure what you mean by "use iCloud fully." There are two options: Not Optimized and Optimized. The first means that every file is stored on your local drive as well as iCloud. The second means that some files are stored only in iCloud, others in both places. In the first instance where everything is also local, then Time Machine can back up everything. In the second case, only the files that are local would be backed up. So it depends on your "Optimize Mac Storage" setting in System Preferences.
Hi Gary... I'm truly fan of your videos and content presentation.. Can I back up my SD card permanently inserted on Mac with Time Machine and same drive?? If yes, how..
I backed up Catalina across the network to an external drive that’s plugged into an AirPort Extreme (5th Gen). I booted into Internet Recovery and selected Restore From Time Machine Backup. When I click “connect” I am prompted for a password for “System Administrator” The ONLY pwd anywhere is my pwd to login and the password to access AirPort Extreme. Any thoughts?
I got one external hard drive setup as time machine , I also have another external hard drive that I work on , now im stuck on how to include my word hard drive to the time machine back up. at the moment when I press backup , it only backs up whats in my Mac but not the other drive . im in options on time machine , I can see that my work drive is listed in there but what do I press now ? there is a ± - button under the box what now ?
As you said, I kept backing up two laptops in one external drive. I am trying to restore one of them (new SSD installed), and Disk Utility can only see other laptop's Time Machine file is not listed in the choice menu. How to get to them?
Time Machine will back up everything on your drive unless you have specifically excluded it. You should really consider using iCloud too, as it is so amazing to have all of your photos available on other devices, like your iPhone. Probably one of the best features of the Apple ecosystem.
@@macmost the reason that I do not want to use iCloud is when it stores things in the cloud and I turn off iCloud it's difficult to download my pics. I am not sure how to select just 1k pics at a time. And I don't want to have to click on them one by one and then have several files that I then have to combine. And no matter how many I select it always seems to fail to down from iCloud. I just find not easy to work with when you want to make backups of files or not use it t all. This is my first Mac. I have had other apple products for years. iCloud has always ucked for me. If you have a tutorial to help, let me know. Thanks
@@macmostThanks for the quick reply. i was thinking about ready to use image with all Apps its related to corporate IT not home use unless their are other tools ? any way thanks for the fast reply. Happy new year. love you channel!!
Sorry if this is a beginner question, I am replace my current external HD drive that I use for backups for a larger Capacity one, can I still plug in the old one and get a file from it after its not being used as the timemachine backup drive? Thank you.
Yes. You can actually have multiple Time Machine backups. So when you start the new one, it is like you have two going. You can always bring in the original and grab a file from that (hopefully you don't need to, unless there is an emergency). I have done this, just keeping the old one around for a month or so.
My macbook has a 250gig drive and after backing up my iphone it already used up almost 200gig. If I have successfully backed up in time machine, can i delete this iphone backup to free up space and get it back in time machine in the future if needed? Thanks in advance.
Still after two years a great video. Question: what happens to my photos when the original is only in iCloud to save space on my iMac? And other documents also get pushed into iCloud Drive after some time when the hard drive gets too full (“optimize Mac storage”)Do I still have a backup of my fotos in original size or do I need to find another solution for backing up my originals including files?
Depends on what you mean y "backing up." The photos are still there in iCloud, always. This is more of a "backup" than most people had (sad to say). But if you want to back them up locally you should have Photos "optimize" off so you have everything locally and can back up to another drive.
@@macmost I mean Time Machine does not hold all my picture in full size if I switch on "optimise Mac storage" in iCloud section. In this case iCloud IS the backup of all my (full size) Fotos and not Time machine. Time machine only has the possibly smaller versions backed up, because it will also delete older files/fotos if the HDD is full, correct?
Hi Gary, thanks for the Great Video. I am new to Apple eco system & I have a dumb question.. Can you please help me understand if multiple users with separate Apple IDs use the same Time Machine? Example, can myself and my roommate use the same time Machine drive to take backups of our iphones and MacBooks without sharing our Apple ID credentials with each other?
Time Machine is for the whole Mac. Once you start the backup it will back up the entire drive (unless you exclude something manually) including all users. But Time Machine is for Macs, not iPhones. It won't do anything for your iPhone. If you let your roommate create another account on your Mac then it would back up their account too.
@@mediashare7021 Nothing similar. You can connect your iPhone to a Mac and use the backup function in the Finder to back up the iPhone's data. But that doesn't work very well as it relies on you manually connecting the iPhone. Using iCloud backup is best.
If I have an existing Mac with lots on the disk and I attach a new external drive, make it a Time Machine drive, and tell it to start backing up, How do I know when the whole drive has been backed up?
Let's say I do a full time machine backup, then upgrade my OS to a new release (e.g. OS X 10 to OS X 14) and certain programs or plugins no longer work, can I restore everything back to the way it was? I.e., revert from OS X 14 back to OS X 10, and all files just as they were before, as if the OS upgrade never took place?
Don't do that. You want to back up your photos and videos, right? If you put them on the same physical drive as your backup, then you have one point of failure. If that drive fails, you lose your photos and the backup of your photos. Drives are cheap. Keep your backup drive as JUST your backup drive. If you need more space, get another drive.
Can I back up my new M1 MacBook Air to my old 3 TB time capsule? I’d like to reformat the time capsule but I’m not sure which format to choose. Will it function with the new M1 Mac’s?
Hi Gary! I have multiple USB Time Machine Backups. Right now I plug one in every week or so and let it do a backup then remove it. I would like to leave one in all the time and just swap them every so often, but then I have to eject the USB to unplug my Mac from the dock (which I always forget to do). Any tips for handling this other than going with the network option?
@@macmost I really like time machine, and prefer it over the others. I also like always having something offline. I think my solution will be to do both network and USB (temporarily connecting just to back up every so often). Just wish there was some option to tell TM to 'back up at 2pm then disconnect the drive' or something like that.
Is it possible to backup two MBP Pros with the same time machine drive? In other words, i'd like to have two MBPs... One to use as my main laptop, and the second one as a backup that I can pull out on-site without having to worry about too much downtime.
I'm confused as to what you are trying to do here. Normally, you can use a single drive to backup multiple Macs. Families do this all the time with an old Time Capsule or newer NAS. The downside is you have so much less space for each backup. But your second paragraph makes me think you are trying to do something different. Are both of these Macs using the same files, over iCloud or another cloud service? If so, why backup the second one at all?
@@macmost Thanks for your reply Gary. So let me explain further. As a DJ, I use my MBP as the epicentre of my setup for music playback. That being said, I would like to have an "Emergency MBP" on hand at all times should my primary MBP go south for whatever reason (or gets stolen). This way, should something happen when i'm at a gig - i'm able to simply go to my gig bag, grab my backup laptop (With the exact same files as my primary laptop) and keep the event running smoothly. I also run multiple DJ setups at times. Having 2 computers with the exact same files would be great! Thanks so much, let me know if you need any further context.
@@djvibedjservices The simple way to do it would be to keep all of your files in iCloud Drive (or any cloud service). Everything is in the cloud. That's how many people move between desktop and laptop computers on a daily basis.
Yes. But it won't have much to back up since if it is sleeping then files aren't being changed, besides maybe the ones you changed in just before, or ones changed by system maintenance.
Not sure what you mean. You can back up to multiple Time Machine drives, yes. But if you want a second backup, I would recommend an online backup service so one of your backups is offsite.
@@macmost1. The USB type - Samsung bar plus titan grey 256GB. 2. The computer that I am using the usb for is a MACBOOK AIR . 3.I didn’t tried it on other computer because I am scared that it will damage it. 4. I didn’t ask the Apple support yet I wanted to ask here fist.
@@brawlbrawlstars4788 oh so a usb flash drive. I mean did you try other usb devices in your Mac to see if it is a problem with the Mac or a problem with the drive. Apple Support should always be your go-to for serious problems, not TH-cam tutorial creators.
I use Time Capsule device to back up my MacBook Air. I am getting a new iMac in a week and will use this MacBook Air backup (from Time Capsule) & restore it to my new iMac. So I will now have 2 Macs with same data & configuration, etc. 1. MacBook Air (with backup configured to Time Capsule) 2. iMac (without a backup configured yet) My main question - Can I also configure iMac backup to the same Time Capsule device (in addition to existing backup from MacBook Air)? Kindly guide me. Please note, both my MacBook Air and iMac will use same Apple ID. Thanks in advance.
If you plan on using both computers, then maybe you don't want to use MA. That's for going from an old computer to a new one. If you want to use both then maybe use iCloud and iCloud Drive to have the same items on both and keep them both working together. Hard to advise without knowing how you plan to use these.
@@macmost thanks so much for quick response. Let me try to explain how I plan to use both macs. iMac will be extensively used as I am mostly working from home. If I need to travel and work from an other city for few days, then I will carry MacBook Air.
@@sharatharun Yes, so you'll be using both Macs. Set up the MacBook Air as you like, but don't migrate to it as you don't want duplicates of all of your files and have to always figure out which is the current one. I'd use iCloud Drive so you can see all of your files on both Macs if I were you (this is in fact how I do it with two Macs).
@@macmost Thank you. I will do this. Sounds logical. But on separate note, can a single Time Capsule support multiple Mac backups? Let’s say 3 members of a family wanna backup their respective Macs to ‘same’ Time Capsule ?
@@sharatharun Time Capsule? Apple hasn't made those in a few years. But yes, they could support multiple Macs. The last version of Time Capsule would have had a pretty small drive though, so as long as the 3 family members weren't using their Macs for much it would be OK.
Garry, I have my PC backed up to OneDrive with lot of space for free from MS. Can the Time Machine backup my MacBook to a folder on OneDrive? Will OneDrive automatically backup MacBook same as to a External Drive.
@@macmost Fair enough. 😀 I use mine regularly and they are frequently in use. Would like to ensure they’re backed up. Will their being included in my Time Machine backups be a problem? FWIW, I’m hoping to configure TM to back up to my NAS.
@@ChrisWaters I don't know how well it would work. Time Machine, I assume, would see your Windows drive as one huge file and have to back up the entire thing every time you do anything with it. I would think a better way would be to use a Windows-based backup inside of your virtual machine for Windows and only backup Mac files with Time Machine.
I use pro tools. I erase tons of trash files when I finish the sesion at the end of the day, after several hours. Is there any way to exclude that files from the backups. ? I don t want to accumulate so much gigas of trash in my backups.
I would like to restore my music ratings and other categorizations that I had in a previous iMac. I use an external drive to store my music library but I have not been able to pull up any of my ratings and other categorizations. How can I pull that information from my time machine back up?
Wow! Thank you! We didn't know how to restore files after backing them up to Time Machine. Thank you!!! So helpful. We've saved this video for later in case we need to see it again
Thanks. Been a mac user for 20yrs. Never bothered with Time Machine. Your vid has changed my mind. Thank you. 😁
I love you with all my heart Gary don’t you ever stop making Mac videos. Please ❤️
Gary, you are the absolute best and my first stop on all questions Mac. I have bought over 40 and I go back to the 2E with Apple. I still own a perfectly functioning 2GS with an Applied Engineering 8 Mhz. accelerator card, and a Mac 7600 with a G3 accelerator card.
the best and most clearest breakdown of time machine. greatly appreciated.
Gary, Thanks for sharing your expertise with the world!
This was one of your best informational videos, i love time machine and time capsule and apple, iPhones, Apple TV and MBPros, when i got off Hewlett Packard in 2012 it was the best thing i ever did and i never looked back.
Great video -- you make everything crystal clear & logical. Thank you!
I love your tutorials. I get all my questions answered -many thanks.!
Hi Gary. I want to back up my mac mini and an external drive, your video gave me the answer I wanted Many thanks
I am commenting on your video mainly because it is so well done and easy to go through the questions. You probably have a video on how to do that and I would love to find out how.
My problem was that I had an older Mac Pro and a 4TB SSD that I used as a Time Machine. That drive was accidentally disconnected for quite a while and when I purchased a New Mac Pro, I needed to use it, but it just wouldn't back up my files, so I used a different 4TB drive and created a new Time Machine.
Here was the problem. I tried everything to reformat the drive using the advice of TH-camrs and couldn't get it done on the old machine and thought to install it along with my larger SSD on the new Mac Pro where I would reformat everything and then install everything new. Still, the drive was bulletproof as it was labeled Master Boot.
So, I just restarted my Mac Pro with everything installed now and have left the Time Machine drive installed where you are given a choice of "eject," "initialize," or "erase."
After so many failures I just chose "eject" and then opened up Disk Utility and tried to erase it and reformat it any way other than "Master Boot." It worked and it took seconds. You have to understand that I had done everything including things said in passing like attaching it to a Windows machine and even then that machine would not do anything.
There you go. The question and answer that I was looking for but could not find. Now I can actually use a good and fast 4TB SSD that I was about to toss.
Thank you Gary very well explained with sweet voice 😊🇨🇦
Excellent video, thank you! Clear, concise, informative.
I used to use Time machine but quit doing it as the old drive was suspect after many years. I think I will get a drive and set it up again. Thanks for prompting me on this,
Thanks Gary. You didn’t discuss encrypting the TM backup drive. That’s really important for me.
I’m thinking of using boot camp to use windows on my iMac. I would want to use a drive to turn back the clock, if I decide I no longer want windows on my computer. How would I use time machine for that, would I restart to the full previous stored version? How? You showed us how to go back to an older file, but what about system wide, or what I’m looking for?
Lots of factors there. You should just be able to delete the Boot Camp partition and go back to having macOS have the whole drive. But you'll need to think on your feet when the time comes. I haven't had to do that in probably 10+ years, and a lot has changed. Otherwise, you can always just wipe the drive, reinstall macOS from recovery mode, and then restore your user account and apps from Time Machine (it asks when you set up macOS).
Thanks
I'm on windows but this was a super simple breakdown. I have a 256gb hard drive computer with a 8tb HDD running every 10 minutes. Thanks
Never could figure out how to restore an old version of a file…thanks so much.
Very helpful video. Thanks for taking the time to make and upload this.
Very helpful video for me, a new user!
Bravo Gary awesome tutorial
can I use the very same external HD to back up 2 Mac OSX systems...? in my case my MacBook runs Mavericks (1/3) and High Sierra (2/3) ... if yes how should I proceed...? maybe I have to apply 2 partitions and Time Machine back up Mavericks to one and High Sierra to another... right...?
If you are talking about a networked drive, then yes, people do that all the time. But if you have to physically move the drive from one Mac to another, then just get another drive for each to make it easier. Of course if you are using iCloud Drive and storing everything in there, you may only really need to backup one Mac since they would all have the same files on them, right?
@@macmost well, by now I'm using the same external HD (1T) divided in 2 partitions (500) to Time machine back up both systems ("Mavericks" & "High Sierra") I mean one system one partition ... thanks for your reply...! actually "work in progress", 6 hrs remaining...! for High Sierra...!
Very helpful video - it answered the questions I had about Time Machine. Thanks very much!
Thanks for the video.
I know TM is supposed to erase oldest versions when drive fills up, but mine is now saying it cannot complete backup because of lack of disk space. Why will it not just erase old versions? 500gig MacBook - 1tb dedicated external time machine drive.
There is a limit. It removes older versions of each file, but keeps one copy at least (otherwise it wouldn't be a very good backup). So as you delete files and replace them with others there is one copy of the deleted file still around. That's how you fill up a Time Machine drive. How fast that happens depends on the type of things you do on your Mac. 1TB is definitely much too small of a drive for Time Machine in your case.
I’m having an issue... On an ext HD, Time Machine has run out of space and thus stopped backups entirely. I get a pop up that say something like “Time Machine doesn’t have enough space to back up etc..” Why is this happening? I want Time Machine to ditch older files that aren’t needed and then continue to backup my recent files. This issue has been a huge blunder and time waster. I’m spending weeks researching how to fix this issue and wether or not I should ditch TM for different backup software? Beyond frustrating!
FYI there are other files on the drive that TM is on. And why can’t I just delete old TM files? I have ZERO use for backups from 2 months ago, let alone 2 years ago, makes no sense.
Gary - how does Time Machine handle files and folders that are within a Cloud service that is supported on the Mac, such as Dropbox and OneDrive? For example, what happens If you do a Time Machine restore to set up a new computer and your old computer includes cloud storage files and folders that are available “on demand” which appear in the Finder on the old computer with an icon next to them indicating that the file needs to be downloaded? Are then any guidelines and/or additional steps that should be taken when migrating cloud storage files and folders to a new computer?
Any help is appreciated.
Time Machine can only back up files that are present on the local drive. But it probably backs up most if not all because of how that works. I did a video on this: th-cam.com/video/6WvwfapIYxE/w-d-xo.html
@@macmost Thank you for the response, Gary. The second video was helpful.
I think the problem is most apparent when you migrate to a new computer and your old computer is set up to use both local files/folders stored on the hard drives but has also offloaded other files/folders to the Cloud. As you indicated, you can still “see” those offloaded items (marked by the Cloud and down arrow) in Finder and easily pull them down when needed.
I realize you must have enough hard drive on your new computer to match your old computer. But what happens when you do a restore of Time Machine on the new computer? How does the restore handle the on-demand files? Do the offloaded items still appear in Finder on the new computer? Or are these folders must missing on the new computer and you have to set them up again using the Cloud service? How do you safely get back to where you were on your old computer?
It gets worse when you have multiple cloud services involved in the setup. I use OneDrive primarily because it provides 1TB of free storage plus I have other files on Dropbox. It gets very complicated.
I ended up in this situation when I got a new M1 Mac Mini which had more limited hard disk space than my old iMac. If I did it again, I would just pay for extra hard disk storage!!
@@tscharlton I'm pretty sure the cloud services handle Time Machine restores gracefully.
You strongly suggest dedicating a drive for Time Machine. Can I partition a large drive and dedicate part of it to Time Machine? Do you see any downside to this strategy?
trying to resstore a drive and it says: "Source format is not valid for restoring". It was formated for backup on time machine as APFS. Why?
I've never seen that before. I'd try calling Apple Support and see what they say.
The revelation happened at minute 6:30! Thanks, Gary.
Thanks for the video! If I do a full back up of my laptop and for some reason I go back to restore from time machine …does it also restore that backups iOS that it was created at that time or just restore files on current iOS? If I go to restore point that was older iOS will it restore how,it looked back then files and iOS version?
Are you backing up your iPhone to your Mac? If so, that backup file is on your Mac and it would be restored at the same time along with every other file. But iOS backups don't back up the operating system, just your data. But what's your goal here? You don't need to restore your whole Mac just to restore your iPhone.
Hi Gary - thanks for another terrific video. Can you tell me whether I should back up Parallels using Time Machine, or will it quickly fill up my external hard drive? Thanks for your help
Hey Gary. Always useful information. thanks. I'm wondering if Time Machine can be used to back up non-OSX work drives to an external i.e. my photo/video drive to an external back up. Can I have Time Machine back up multiple sources to multiple targets? So, a basic OSX backup as usual but also a photo drive to its own back up drive, a video edit drive to it's own back up drive etc...
Thanks fro your help
No, it isn't configurable to that level. It is meant to be easy to use, but you want something more pro level.
Gary what if I use a non empty external hard disk for time machine. Will it delete all the things stored in it ??
You need to use an empty drive. First, you can't back up data from the same drive -- that doesn't make sense for local reasons. Second, you want to let Time Machine control the entire drive. Just get a drive that is dedicated to your backup and nothing else.
Can't I just make two partitions in the drive so it does Time Machines backups and is used for storage? Also, can I use one drive for Time Machine backups with two MacBooks, an older one and a new one?
Hey Gary! Thanks for this video. Just purchased a new MacBook Pro M1 and want to restore from my older MacBook (2015), both are running BigSur. You showed in this video how to restore individual files, but do you have a video that shows how to restore ALL user data to a MacBook that currently has an iOS installed? If so, please point me to it when you have a chance. Thanks so much. Jeff.
...and btw, I do have a Time Machine backup.
You mentioned that you can use a single drive for multiple computers at 3:48. Do you need to partition the drive or do anything to it to allow it to separate the computers? I haven't been able to get a straight answer online or via Apple Tech Support - but when I plug in my drive to the router I'm only able to select a single one of my partitions to use for Time Machine. Can I remove the partitions all together an backup multiple computers over the network to the same disk without any additional partitioning?
Gary - Love your channel! I'm still trying to figure out how to best backup my MacBook Pro using Time Machine. I'm running both Catalina for legacy programs and Monterey for current apps. It seams that I need to run separate backups for each OS. Is there a better way to do this? Also, any tips on restoring a drive with dual operating systems would be appreciated. Thanks!
hello, thanks for the video
i have a problem why everything the back up bar stop????
Question: Time Machine backup way back from 2014 Snow Leopard onto a 1TB WD drive... I didn't understand "backups" at all then and rather than formatting it via Disk Utility, the drive self formatted when I used Time Machine. My goal was to backup .jpg and .mov or .mp4 on my system to the hard drive so I could view and copy files with any other computer (Windows, Mac)... any way to retrieve the files now to see and copy them as usable to another computer or external drive?
Hi, Did you manage to solve your 'problem' as I too have the same question?
@@PeterCheape no
Thanks Gary, very informative, I do have a specific question. I recently downloaded the latest version of Sonoma 14.6.1 on my iMac and found an issue with one of my programs, I've contacted Apple but they were unable to solve. Just curious, I do have a Time Machine backup prior to downloading this new version of Sonoma, Can I go back to that date and time and restore the old Sonoma version which was working just fine. Appreciate your comments. Regards Tony
Not easily, no. Did you contact the maker of that app about the problem? That would be the thing to do. You can't stop updates and leave your Mac frozen in time and with security updates and compatibility issues just to keep one app going.
Great job! And I know this is 3 years old, but I'm reaching out in case you still check messages on this video! In time machine, the "little" lines (before "today" or "right now" are not available to click on unless I click and hold down "Today," but once I let "today" go, I am unable to click on the little lines I see that are for yesterday. Any help on this would be greatly appreciated!
I just bought a new Mac mini. When I started it up and logged in as an Apple user, I noticed that the calendar and contacts from my old MacBook Pro had already populated those apps. My question is if I use the Migration Asst program from my MacBook Pro to transfer data from a Time Machine backup to my new Mac mini, will there be a bunch of duplicate entries in my calendar and contacts. Thanks
short, crisp and really useful. Excellent video. BUt have one question. What if your macbook runs out of power or battery or for some reason, you need to stop the backup and put off your laptop. Can one resume the back up again the next day? Please advise
It will just stop the backup and continue them the next time. But this rarely happens because if you have your MacBook connected to your external Time Machine drive, then why not have it connected to power at the same time?
Time machine uses full backup or incremental backup ?
Time Machine is incremental. It only backs up what is new or changed.
@@macmost thanks a lot . I am finally buying a NAS for the same based on your recommendation in lesson 13 I think . Also for my 2 TB Mackbook pro , I think 6TB would be enough for time machine or should I increase the capacity?
@@TheICUChannel Hard to know, but the more capacity the longer your backup will be.
@@macmost Thank u . Thanks again for reply . You are a gem 💎
thank you for the information it was excellent.
hey Gary any idea how to copy or transfer my time machine backups (apfs) Monterey to a new drive??
I'm having a tough time finding out if I can backup different data on a single computer to separate external drives. Can this be done. Here's the scenario. I have regular household data on my desktop and I have my photo imagery files on the same desktop. I would like to use Time Machine to backup the household data on one external drive and have the photo image files backed up on the other external drive. I need to understand how to select the specific data (say the photo imagery data) and have Time Machine save it to the specific external hard drive I want?
That's how Time Machine works by default. Just set up the third drive to be your Time Machine backup. It should backup everything on your internal and external. Make sure in Time Machine settings you don't have your external listed in the Privacy settings (which would cause Time Machine to skip it). This is exactly my setup, in fact.
Gary, thanks for this material. I have subscribed and support you on Patreon. I am a newbie in every sense of the word. Here's my dilemma: I use two time machine backups as you mentioned... one at home and one at work. The one at work can be ejected easily by going to Finder, locating the drive and ejecting. The drive at home will occasionally work in the same way, but usually no matter how often you push on the eject symbol, you are told something is using the drive. If you Force Quit, there is a warning the drive isn't being ejected properly. Thoughts?
Great video! Thanks
How do you back up the apps or software on your mac or does TM automatically backup everything you use on your device? E.G. your entire adobe creative suite.
It does, but that doesn't matter. If your Mac were to die or get stolen, you could just re-download the Adobe apps using Creative Cloud. No need to restore from a backup at all.
do you know of any way to compare time machine backups? So like a list of differences between them where we can see which files have been added, deleted or modified between 2 or more backups on our external disk so we can quickly check the differences between all our backups and change back any files that were mistakenly changed before it's too late and the oldest backup gets replaced as time passes as we may not have even noticed a change (deletion, addition or modification) on certain files that we may not want to remain as such? That would be a VERY VERY useful tool!!
Thank you. Only issue I’m having is Now it says encrypting and the progress bar will not move
Encrypting could take many days. But you don't have to pay any attention to it. Just let it work.
@@macmost I went to File - Export right to the external drive. I did have to give my profile read and write permission though first. Thx!
Great video my friend! I'm new to a lot of this and I found this very concise and helpful
Best in class content
How to view, restore a photo from Time Machine? (not whole library, it's huge )
Macbook drive mainly has pics and own videos, got 2 TB ssd for TM, ran OK, can open TM, see Pictures folder with Photos lib in it (just like macbook finder.) Click Photos library in mb Finder Pictures folder, see pics OK
Click Photos in TM finder Pictures folder, it does not open Photos app (just a big dead file :)
Thanks for great, concise video. And any explanation: If MB ssd full, delete some videos or pics I know are on TM, how do I find, see and restore just those?
Excellent video, but I have a question. It looks like the Time Machine stopped doing backups to the external drive 2 years ago on the Mac I am inspecting. It sounds like the external drive is broken (makes noise). However, Time Machine seems to be continuing to do back ups somehow. Does it default to the internal Mac drive for TM backups when the external gets corrupted? I’m confused.
support.apple.com/en-us/HT204015
Gary, the drive on my 3t Time Machine stopped working about a month ago, and ordered a 4T 3.5 Sata replacement. how would I copy the data from the old one onto the new one. (I haven't replaced yet). Love your videos..
So I have a Synology NAS being used as a TimeMachine Backup, the NAS says that it’s used 1.51 Th of my 2 TB quota. When I attempt a backup on my MAC, it initiated and then stops, saying there is only 376GB available and that it needs to back up 800 something GB to the time machine.
I also have an atrocious amount of “other” files on my MacBook Pro in the amount of 218GB, Idk where the hell all these came from but I need them gone and I had thought I would have to back up, prior to deleting a bunch of files
Does it have to be a dedicated external drive(i.e. just for the backup) or I can use a "used" drive for other purposes?
I strongly recommend a dedicated drive for this. Get a large HDD (cheap per TB). If you use the drive for other purposes, then those files on the drive won't really be backed up (one drive = one point of failure).
Hi Gary! Thanks for this amazing video! Just wondering f you have a video (or if it's even possible) about backing up (time machine) multiple macs with just one drive. Would love to know! Thanks so much!
You can do that with no extra steps needed. Just use the same drive. But if these are stationary Macs, then get them each their own drive so they can be connected all the time. Even if they are laptops, if you are connecting them manually, just get each its own drive. But using one (big) drive is handy when it is connected as a network drive and you are using it backup laptop Macs .
Thanks for the wonderful and informative vid. A quick question , could Time Machine be used to restore a computer’s previous state . Let’s say, I have installed MS Office 365 into my Mac and I would like to use TimeMachine to go back to the state before MS Office was installed . The whole thing is like uninstall MS Office. Could Time Machine fulfil this function? Thanks in advance for your wonderful tips. 😊
Yes, using the Restore option in recovery mode. But you definitely don't want to do that to just uninstall Microsoft Office. That is way too much work with way too much risk for such a simple thing. Just uninstall it normally. Assuming you installed from the Microsoft download (not the Mac App Store) the instructions are here: support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/uninstall-office-for-mac-eefa1199-5b58-43af-8a3d-b73dc1a8cae3
@@macmost Thanks for your reply. Is the recovery mode you are referring to the bootup recovery option, from which we choose the backup drive?
@@justsradWell, yes. But I strongly advise you NOT to restore your Mac. Don't do it. Just uninstall Microsoft Office.
@@macmost I see. Got it. Thanks for your advice.
Does Time Machine(or any backup service for that matter) capture corrupted files/virus or does it automatically fix it in the process?
Time Machine just backs up files, it doesn't scan them for issues.
I currently use Time Machine to backup my MacBook. I also do a weekly disk copy with SuperDuper to a separate drive. If I was to use iCloud fully, so all my data and photos were "in the cloud", would Time Machine still have everything backed up as it does now from the hard disk? With iCloud is all the data physically still on my Mac AND in iCloud or is it only brought back to the Mac when I want to update a file?
Not sure what you mean by "use iCloud fully." There are two options: Not Optimized and Optimized. The first means that every file is stored on your local drive as well as iCloud. The second means that some files are stored only in iCloud, others in both places. In the first instance where everything is also local, then Time Machine can back up everything. In the second case, only the files that are local would be backed up. So it depends on your "Optimize Mac Storage" setting in System Preferences.
So time machine can backup internal and external drive to one big backup drive? or do you have to have 2 backup drives?
It backs up multiple drives to one. Make sure your backup drive is big enough to hold it all, and then some, and then some more.
Good video, thanks. One question, how to I recover a file to a different t Mac?
Hi Gary... I'm truly fan of your videos and content presentation..
Can I back up my SD card permanently inserted on Mac with Time Machine and same drive?? If yes, how..
I backed up Catalina across the network to an external drive that’s plugged into an AirPort Extreme (5th Gen). I booted into Internet Recovery and selected Restore From Time Machine Backup. When I click “connect” I am prompted for a password for “System Administrator”
The ONLY pwd anywhere is my pwd to login and the password to access AirPort Extreme. Any thoughts?
Super helpful!!! You answered all my questions. 🙏
I got one external hard drive setup as time machine , I also have another external hard drive that I work on , now im stuck on how to include my word hard drive to the time machine back up. at the moment when I press backup , it only backs up whats in my Mac but not the other drive . im in options on time machine , I can see that my work drive is listed in there but what do I press now ? there is a ± - button under the box what now ?
Very informative. Thank you!
How long did it take you to backup your Mac?
As you said, I kept backing up two laptops in one external drive. I am trying to restore one of them (new SSD installed), and Disk Utility can only see other laptop's Time Machine file is not listed in the choice menu. How to get to them?
You should be using Migration Assistant, not Disk Utility, to restore to a new SSD. support.apple.com/en-us/HT203981
Does time machine back up photos or should i put them on another drive if i do not want to use a cloud service?
Time Machine will back up everything on your drive unless you have specifically excluded it. You should really consider using iCloud too, as it is so amazing to have all of your photos available on other devices, like your iPhone. Probably one of the best features of the Apple ecosystem.
@@macmost the reason that I do not want to use iCloud is when it stores things in the cloud and I turn off iCloud it's difficult to download my pics. I am not sure how to select just 1k pics at a time. And I don't want to have to click on them one by one and then have several files that I then have to combine. And no matter how many I select it always seems to fail to down from iCloud. I just find not easy to work with when you want to make backups of files or not use it t all. This is my first Mac. I have had other apple products for years. iCloud has always ucked for me. If you have a tutorial to help, let me know. Thanks
@@HyperionSun_ If you aren't using the "Optimize" option, then all of your pics are always already downloaded to your Mac.
@@macmost I have pictures on other devices. Which I did download to a SSD. But apple said I only had 30 days to download my pics from iCloud.
Could I use a single HDD and partition it to use part for time machine backup, and part for Windows backup with bootcamp?
Not sure that will work. I wouldn't risk it. Just get two separate drives.
Great info. can i use time machine to mount laptop OS with all my Apps ? i mean if i have few Macbooks that i often erase thanks
No, you should just install macOS from Apple. Or, just erase the data and not macOS. There's a function for that in System Preferences/Settings.
@@macmostThanks for the quick reply. i was thinking about ready to use image with all Apps its related to corporate IT not home use unless their are other tools ? any way thanks for the fast reply. Happy new year. love you channel!!
@@mosheh800 If you are in corporate IT, then you probably should be using support.apple.com/apple-configurator
Sorry if this is a beginner question, I am replace my current external HD drive that I use for backups for a larger Capacity one, can I still plug in the old one and get a file from it after its not being used as the timemachine backup drive?
Thank you.
Yes. You can actually have multiple Time Machine backups. So when you start the new one, it is like you have two going. You can always bring in the original and grab a file from that (hopefully you don't need to, unless there is an emergency). I have done this, just keeping the old one around for a month or so.
@@macmost Thank you for the help.
My macbook has a 250gig drive and after backing up my iphone it already used up almost 200gig. If I have successfully backed up in time machine, can i delete this iphone backup to free up space and get it back in time machine in the future if needed? Thanks in advance.
Still after two years a great video. Question: what happens to my photos when the original is only in iCloud to save space on my iMac? And other documents also get pushed into iCloud Drive after some time when the hard drive gets too full (“optimize Mac storage”)Do I still have a backup of my fotos in original size or do I need to find another solution for backing up my originals including files?
Depends on what you mean y "backing up." The photos are still there in iCloud, always. This is more of a "backup" than most people had (sad to say). But if you want to back them up locally you should have Photos "optimize" off so you have everything locally and can back up to another drive.
@@macmost I mean Time Machine does not hold all my picture in full size if I switch on "optimise Mac storage" in iCloud section. In this case iCloud IS the backup of all my (full size) Fotos and not Time machine. Time machine only has the possibly smaller versions backed up, because it will also delete older files/fotos if the HDD is full, correct?
@@andreasschmidt553 Yes.
Hi Gary, thanks for the Great Video.
I am new to Apple eco system & I have a dumb question.. Can you please help me understand if multiple users with separate Apple IDs use the same Time Machine?
Example, can myself and my roommate use the same time Machine drive to take backups of our iphones and MacBooks without sharing our Apple ID credentials with each other?
Time Machine is for the whole Mac. Once you start the backup it will back up the entire drive (unless you exclude something manually) including all users. But Time Machine is for Macs, not iPhones. It won't do anything for your iPhone. If you let your roommate create another account on your Mac then it would back up their account too.
@@macmost thanks so much for the prompt response 🙏
Is there anything similar for iphone backups other than iCloud?
@@mediashare7021 Nothing similar. You can connect your iPhone to a Mac and use the backup function in the Finder to back up the iPhone's data. But that doesn't work very well as it relies on you manually connecting the iPhone. Using iCloud backup is best.
@@macmost thank your so much
If I have an existing Mac with lots on the disk and I attach a new external drive, make it a Time Machine drive, and tell it to start backing up, How do I know when the whole drive has been backed up?
It shows status in several places. Check in System Preferences, Time Machine for one.
I have partition my new external SSD to increase storage on my Imac 24 and use time machine is this a bad idea? it is working like a champ!
I don’t think your able to download files now unless you reformat it
Does it back up ur apps?? And permissions???
Let's say I do a full time machine backup, then upgrade my OS to a new release (e.g. OS X 10 to OS X 14) and certain programs or plugins no longer work, can I restore everything back to the way it was? I.e., revert from OS X 14 back to OS X 10, and all files just as they were before, as if the OS upgrade never took place?
Thanks, Gary. Am I able to exclude different folders for different Time Machine drive backups?
No, there’s no way to do that.
Thank you.
Great explanation. thank you
is there a way i can create a separate space on the hard drive i use to backup time machine on my macbook, for my photos and videos only?
Don't do that. You want to back up your photos and videos, right? If you put them on the same physical drive as your backup, then you have one point of failure. If that drive fails, you lose your photos and the backup of your photos. Drives are cheap. Keep your backup drive as JUST your backup drive. If you need more space, get another drive.
@@macmost thank you so much !
Can I back up my new M1 MacBook Air to my old 3 TB time capsule? I’d like to reformat the time capsule but I’m not sure which format to choose. Will it function with the new M1 Mac’s?
Just reformat it as a blank APFS. Time Machine would format it for you even if you got it wrong.
Hi Gary! I have multiple USB Time Machine Backups. Right now I plug one in every week or so and let it do a backup then remove it. I would like to leave one in all the time and just swap them every so often, but then I have to eject the USB to unplug my Mac from the dock (which I always forget to do). Any tips for handling this other than going with the network option?
So it is a MacBook? Then why not do the network option? Or maybe do the online route with Backblaze or similar?
@@macmost I really like time machine, and prefer it over the others. I also like always having something offline. I think my solution will be to do both network and USB (temporarily connecting just to back up every so often). Just wish there was some option to tell TM to 'back up at 2pm then disconnect the drive' or something like that.
Superb video. Would time machine also back-up everything related to Parallels, if installed on a Mac? Thank you very much.
Yes
@@stanleynowak9325 Thank you very much, Stanley. Definitely something that has been frequently was on my mind. I am much more relaxed now.
Is it possible to backup two MBP Pros with the same time machine drive?
In other words, i'd like to have two MBPs... One to use as my main laptop, and the second one as a backup that I can pull out on-site without having to worry about too much downtime.
I'm confused as to what you are trying to do here. Normally, you can use a single drive to backup multiple Macs. Families do this all the time with an old Time Capsule or newer NAS. The downside is you have so much less space for each backup. But your second paragraph makes me think you are trying to do something different. Are both of these Macs using the same files, over iCloud or another cloud service? If so, why backup the second one at all?
@@macmost Thanks for your reply Gary.
So let me explain further. As a DJ, I use my MBP as the epicentre of my setup for music playback.
That being said, I would like to have an "Emergency MBP" on hand at all times should my primary MBP go south for whatever reason (or gets stolen). This way, should something happen when i'm at a gig - i'm able to simply go to my gig bag, grab my backup laptop (With the exact same files as my primary laptop) and keep the event running smoothly.
I also run multiple DJ setups at times. Having 2 computers with the exact same files would be great!
Thanks so much, let me know if you need any further context.
@@djvibedjservices The simple way to do it would be to keep all of your files in iCloud Drive (or any cloud service). Everything is in the cloud. That's how many people move between desktop and laptop computers on a daily basis.
Hi Gary, can I restore a system disk onto an external sdd attached via thunderbolt? (Internal hard disk failure in iMac). Thanks!
Not sure. Why? What is your goal here?
I am new to mac so kindly tell me ,if i connect a drive and start time machine and put imac to sleep will it still back up
Thanks
Yes. But it won't have much to back up since if it is sleeping then files aren't being changed, besides maybe the ones you changed in just before, or ones changed by system maintenance.
@@macmost Thanks
Hi, can I backup the Time Machine drive on another disk to respect the 3-2-1 backup rule?
Not sure what you mean. You can back up to multiple Time Machine drives, yes. But if you want a second backup, I would recommend an online backup service so one of your backups is offsite.
And I have another question do you know why does my computer shuts down when I plug in my usb?
What is "my USB?" What are you plugging in? Does it shut down when you plug other USB things in? What did Apple Support say?
@@macmost1. The USB type - Samsung bar plus titan grey 256GB.
2. The computer that I am using the usb for is a MACBOOK AIR .
3.I didn’t tried it on other computer because I am scared that it will damage it.
4. I didn’t ask the Apple support yet I wanted to ask here fist.
@@brawlbrawlstars4788 oh so a usb flash drive. I mean did you try other usb devices in your Mac to see if it is a problem with the Mac or a problem with the drive. Apple Support should always be your go-to for serious problems, not TH-cam tutorial creators.
@@macmost ok thank you
I use Time Capsule device to back up my MacBook Air. I am getting a new iMac in a week and will use this MacBook Air backup (from Time Capsule) & restore it to my new iMac.
So I will now have 2 Macs with same data & configuration, etc.
1. MacBook Air (with backup configured to Time Capsule)
2. iMac (without a backup configured yet)
My main question - Can I also configure iMac backup to the same Time Capsule device (in addition to existing backup from MacBook Air)?
Kindly guide me. Please note, both my MacBook Air and iMac will use same Apple ID.
Thanks in advance.
If you plan on using both computers, then maybe you don't want to use MA. That's for going from an old computer to a new one. If you want to use both then maybe use iCloud and iCloud Drive to have the same items on both and keep them both working together. Hard to advise without knowing how you plan to use these.
@@macmost thanks so much for quick response. Let me try to explain how I plan to use both macs.
iMac will be extensively used as I am mostly working from home.
If I need to travel and work from an other city for few days, then I will carry MacBook Air.
@@sharatharun Yes, so you'll be using both Macs. Set up the MacBook Air as you like, but don't migrate to it as you don't want duplicates of all of your files and have to always figure out which is the current one. I'd use iCloud Drive so you can see all of your files on both Macs if I were you (this is in fact how I do it with two Macs).
@@macmost Thank you. I will do this. Sounds logical.
But on separate note, can a single Time Capsule support multiple Mac backups? Let’s say 3 members of a family wanna backup their respective Macs to ‘same’ Time Capsule ?
@@sharatharun Time Capsule? Apple hasn't made those in a few years. But yes, they could support multiple Macs. The last version of Time Capsule would have had a pretty small drive though, so as long as the 3 family members weren't using their Macs for much it would be OK.
Garry, I have my PC backed up to OneDrive with lot of space for free from MS. Can the Time Machine backup my MacBook to a folder on OneDrive? Will OneDrive automatically backup MacBook same as to a External Drive.
Noticed you’re excluding your Parallels virtual machines. Do you use a different strategy for backing those up?
For me,. nothing to backup. I only used them back then for testing things like how websites worked on Windows browsers and such.
@@macmost Fair enough. 😀 I use mine regularly and they are frequently in use. Would like to ensure they’re backed up. Will their being included in my Time Machine backups be a problem? FWIW, I’m hoping to configure TM to back up to my NAS.
@@ChrisWaters I don't know how well it would work. Time Machine, I assume, would see your Windows drive as one huge file and have to back up the entire thing every time you do anything with it. I would think a better way would be to use a Windows-based backup inside of your virtual machine for Windows and only backup Mac files with Time Machine.
I use pro tools. I erase tons of trash files when I finish the sesion at the end of the day, after several hours. Is there any way to exclude that files from the backups. ? I don t want to accumulate so much gigas of trash in my backups.
Yes, Just go to System Preferences, Time Machine, Options, and add those folders.
I would like to restore my music ratings and other categorizations that I had in a previous iMac. I use an external drive to store my music library but I have not been able to pull up any of my ratings and other categorizations. How can I pull that information from my time machine back up?
Probably not possible. Not sure why you lost them, but there's no function to restore just that data from a backup or anything.