#How to set up time machine on mac upgrade
#How to set up time machine on mac software

In most cases, you’ll use an external hard drive for this. What you need now is a place for your backed up files to be stored.

#How to set up time machine on mac software

Turns out you’re already halfway there, since the Time Machine software comes pre-installed. I’m going to assume you’re convinced: Time Machine’s the backup system for you. Time Machine lets you go back to the time when tall of the images were where they belonged, and then bring them “ back to the future.”

One more scenario: you open up a folder that used to hold hundreds of photos.

Time Machine lets you restore older versions of your document– from an hour ago, 6 hours ago, a day ago, 30 days ago, or even last year. You make some changes and then, some time later, you realize that the document was better a while back. Suppose you’re working on a project– maybe a report for school, maybe a book, maybe a page layout document, maybe an art project. You need to be able to go back a few days and try opening the file as it existed last week. A “regular” backup system would have backed up the corrupt file– that is, your backup file would be corrupt too. Imagine: your Quicken file opened last week, but it doesn’t today.

All of a sudden, your Quicken file won’t open.

Why is that important? Well, imagine this scenario: Keep in mind that Time Machine saves a snapshot of your machine after every backup. No other backup system is as easy to set up nor as easy to restore from, and if you’re not using it already I’m here to talk you into it. When you need to restore files, Time Machine is ready to restore a single file, an entire folder, your whole Mac– or anything in between. Once set up, Time Machine works in the background, backing up your Mac every hour.

#How to set up time machine on mac upgrade

So is setting up a new hard drive, in case you upgrade your Mac to a bigger, faster disk. Setting up a new Mac is a piece of cake if you have a Time Machine backup of the old Mac. Time Machine can be used to restore individual files, or an entire Mac. Time Machine will back up every file on every drive you connect to your Mac, automatically, unless you tell it not to. Time Machine backs up to a disk, not to “the cloud,” so Step One is “get a disk to back up to.” For best results, devote an entire disk to the backup task.

The odds are very very good that your Mac has Time Machine already installed. Every new Mac has it, and most old ones do too, as it was introduced with System 10.5 (Leopard).

Click “Yes” when asked if you want to use this disk for Time Machine backups.

Buy an external hard drive (here are some good options).

(First in a series of backup-related blog posts)