With Apple releasing a slew of new MacBooks,
you might be looking for a good way to back up your data before upgrading to a new computer.
While we don't have a wibbly wobbly timey wimey type of machine -
we do have Apple's Time Machine software to make sure we can always recover the data of our past.
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My name is Trisha Hershberger and you are watching DIY in 5
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Today we'll go over how to backup and restore your files on macOS safely using Time Machine.
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Whether you are looking to upgrade to a new MacBook
or simply backup your data because you haven't done so in a while,
backing up your Mac regularly is one of the smartest things you can do.
Should your precious computer get damaged or start to malfunction
you'll wish you had a time machine to go back and recover that data.
Luckily, Time Machine is the failsafe software built into macOS since the very first version of OS X.
With Time Machine, backups are automatic,
and restoring a missing file or recovering an earlier version of a document is easy.
To create a Time Machine backup,
first you'll need to decide where you'd like to store your backup.
Apple gives you many options from external hard drives to NAS storage to Airport Time Capsule.
Today, we'll walkthrough how to backup using an external drive.
First, connect an external storage device, such as a USB or Thunderbolt drive.
For this demo we'll be using the Kingston XS2000 Portable SSD.
If you're unsure what size external hard drive to get, not to worry!
Time Machine will inform you of the total size of your backup.
Light users might be a-ok with a 500GB or less capacity,
while heavy users may want something closer to 1TB.
After you've connected your chosen hard drive, next, open System Preferences and select Time Machine.
From here, you can click Select Backup Disk and select your disk.
You'll have the option to encrypt your backup if you like.
Then, simply wait for the backup to begin.
Time Machine will give you an approximate time to complete the backup
then you just wait it out.
You can continue to use your Mac while the backup is going on -
which is great because the first one can take a long time depending how much data you are backing up.
You'll receive a notification in the top right corner of your desktop when the backup is finished.
If you choose to do so, Time Machine can save backups every hour
and keeps multiple copies of each change that's made to every file.
Once you get your shiny new computer
or otherwise want to restore files from a Time Machine backup, that process is pretty simple too.
You can select Enter the Time Machine from the menu bar in the upper right corner
and go to where you last saved the item you want to restore.
If you don't remember where the item was saved,
you can search it by clicking the magnifying glass in the upper right corner of time machine.
You'll be able to browse through older versions of files, deleted files,
and even look by specific time period.
When you find what you are looking for, feel free to select it, preview it to double check
then click restore to return the item to its original location.
If you are looking to do a whole system backup, this process is a bit more involved.
In the Utilities folder, you can open the Migration Assistant.
When asked how you want to transfer your information,
you can choose From a Mac, Time Machine or startup disk
and be sure to plug in your Mac if it isn't already since this process can take a bit.
Select the correct external hard drive and click continue
then select the backup you want to restore and click continue again.
Then you'll be asked what you'd like to restore and you can choose as much as you'd like and click continue again.
As before, this may take a long time, so you may want to find something to do to occupy your time.
Tl:dr - If you regularly back up your computer to Time machine,
you can restore older versions of files, photos, videos and more.
Keeping things backed up helps in case something happens to your precious Mac
or you've decided to upgrade your device and want to make the swap simpler.
Are you planning on an upgrade soon?
If so, let us know what you've got your eyes on in the comments.
Take care everyone and we will see you soon with more DIY in 5!