Apple offers its customers a range of options for backing up pictures and files on Mac desktop computers or MacBook laptops. While Apple's solutions are good for Apple, customers should consider additional backup options if they want to ensure their files are truly secure.
Choose a backup method
Backup Mac Laptop
- How to Backup Android to Mac with Coolmuster Android Assistant for Mac. The best way for you to.
- So how to back up Mac without Time Machine becomes the next question. If you are trying to find a simple way to back up files and data on your Mac computer, just follow below-offered method to fully back up your Mac data without Time Machine now. 3 Steps to Backup Mac without Time Machine Let Time Machine Alternative Software Help!
Before you get started, learn the difference between iCloud backups and backups you make using your computer, then choose the method that's best for you. If you need an alternative backup, you can make one in iCloud and another using your computer.
How to back up with iCloud
- Connect your device to a Wi-Fi network.
- Go to Settings > [your name], and tap iCloud.
- Tap iCloud Backup.
- Tap Back Up Now. Stay connected to your Wi-Fi network until the process completes.
You can check the progress and confirm the backup completed. Go to Settings > [your name] > iCloud > iCloud Backup. Under Back Up Now, you'll see the date and time of your last backup.
Get help making a backup or manage your available space in iCloud.
Automatically back up with iCloud Backup
To let iCloud automatically back up your device each day, here's what you need to do:
- Make sure that iCloud Backup is turned on in Settings > [your name] > iCloud > iCloud Backup.
- Connect your device to a power source.
- Connect your device to a Wi-Fi network.
- Make sure that your device's screen is locked.
- Check that you have enough available space in iCloud for the backup. When you sign in to iCloud, you get 5GB of iCloud storage for free. If you need more iCloud storage, you can buy more from your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, or Mac. Plans start at 50GB for $0.99 (USD) a month. Learn more about prices in your region.
How to back up with your computer
- Connect your device to your computer. On a Mac with macOS Catalina 10.15, open Finder. On a Mac with macOS Mojave 10.14 or earlier, or on a PC, open iTunes.
- If a message asks for your device passcode or to Trust This Computer, follow the onscreen steps. If you forgot your passcode, get help.
- Locate your device on your computer. If your device doesn't appear on your computer, learn what to do.
- If you want to save Health and Activity data from your device or Apple Watch, you need to encrypt your backup: Select the box called Encrypt [device] backup and create a memorable password. If you don't need to save your Health and Activity data, you can make a backup that isn't encrypted. Just click Back Up Now.
Write down your password and store it somewhere safe, because there's no way to recover your iTunes backups without this password. - When the process ends, you can see if the backup finished successfully.
Learn more
- Restore your device from a backup.
- Get help with iCloud backups or iTunes backups.
- Manage your backups.
You see it happen all the time.
Bill: Oh man, you look panicked. What happened?
Stephen: My hard drive failed Monday night. I lost everything. Pictures, emails, my resume…
Bill: You didn't have it backed up?
Stephen: Nope.
Most of the time people aren't prepared for their hard drive to fail, and most of the time they lose everything. To avoid being the next Stephen, follow the steps below to back up your computer.
Buy a Backup Hard Drive
One of the difficulties of making backups is that those backups take up a lot of space on your computer. In order to have enough room to back up your computer, you might want to buy an external hard drive. Don't worry though, an external hard drive on Amazon.com with one terabyte of space runs for less than $100.00. To give you an idea of the massive size of a one terabyte hard drive consider this: a one terabyte hard drive will hold up to 200,000 pictures or up to 250,000 songs. Here are a couple of places you can buy an external hard drive for a good price:
Choose a backup method
Backup Mac Laptop
- How to Backup Android to Mac with Coolmuster Android Assistant for Mac. The best way for you to.
- So how to back up Mac without Time Machine becomes the next question. If you are trying to find a simple way to back up files and data on your Mac computer, just follow below-offered method to fully back up your Mac data without Time Machine now. 3 Steps to Backup Mac without Time Machine Let Time Machine Alternative Software Help!
Before you get started, learn the difference between iCloud backups and backups you make using your computer, then choose the method that's best for you. If you need an alternative backup, you can make one in iCloud and another using your computer.
How to back up with iCloud
- Connect your device to a Wi-Fi network.
- Go to Settings > [your name], and tap iCloud.
- Tap iCloud Backup.
- Tap Back Up Now. Stay connected to your Wi-Fi network until the process completes.
You can check the progress and confirm the backup completed. Go to Settings > [your name] > iCloud > iCloud Backup. Under Back Up Now, you'll see the date and time of your last backup.
Get help making a backup or manage your available space in iCloud.
Automatically back up with iCloud Backup
To let iCloud automatically back up your device each day, here's what you need to do:
- Make sure that iCloud Backup is turned on in Settings > [your name] > iCloud > iCloud Backup.
- Connect your device to a power source.
- Connect your device to a Wi-Fi network.
- Make sure that your device's screen is locked.
- Check that you have enough available space in iCloud for the backup. When you sign in to iCloud, you get 5GB of iCloud storage for free. If you need more iCloud storage, you can buy more from your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, or Mac. Plans start at 50GB for $0.99 (USD) a month. Learn more about prices in your region.
How to back up with your computer
- Connect your device to your computer. On a Mac with macOS Catalina 10.15, open Finder. On a Mac with macOS Mojave 10.14 or earlier, or on a PC, open iTunes.
- If a message asks for your device passcode or to Trust This Computer, follow the onscreen steps. If you forgot your passcode, get help.
- Locate your device on your computer. If your device doesn't appear on your computer, learn what to do.
- If you want to save Health and Activity data from your device or Apple Watch, you need to encrypt your backup: Select the box called Encrypt [device] backup and create a memorable password. If you don't need to save your Health and Activity data, you can make a backup that isn't encrypted. Just click Back Up Now.
Write down your password and store it somewhere safe, because there's no way to recover your iTunes backups without this password. - When the process ends, you can see if the backup finished successfully.
Learn more
- Restore your device from a backup.
- Get help with iCloud backups or iTunes backups.
- Manage your backups.
You see it happen all the time.
Bill: Oh man, you look panicked. What happened?
Stephen: My hard drive failed Monday night. I lost everything. Pictures, emails, my resume…
Bill: You didn't have it backed up?
Stephen: Nope.
Most of the time people aren't prepared for their hard drive to fail, and most of the time they lose everything. To avoid being the next Stephen, follow the steps below to back up your computer.
Buy a Backup Hard Drive
One of the difficulties of making backups is that those backups take up a lot of space on your computer. In order to have enough room to back up your computer, you might want to buy an external hard drive. Don't worry though, an external hard drive on Amazon.com with one terabyte of space runs for less than $100.00. To give you an idea of the massive size of a one terabyte hard drive consider this: a one terabyte hard drive will hold up to 200,000 pictures or up to 250,000 songs. Here are a couple of places you can buy an external hard drive for a good price:
Backup a Windows 7 Computer
Here's how to back up your Windows 7 computer.
- Plug-in your external hard drive to your computer.
- Double click on Computer. A list of drives will open up in a separate window.
- Right-click on your main hard drive and click 'Properties'.
- Click the 'Tools' tab at the top.
- Click 'Back up now…'.
- Under the window 'Back up or restore your files' click 'Set up backup'.
- Click your backup drive in the 'Select where you want to save your backup' window and click Next. If you have an external hard drive you would select that here.
- Windows will ask what you want to back up. Picking 'Let Windows choose' will work fine for most people. If you prefer more control you can choose your folders by picking 'Let me choose'.
- Under 'How often do you want to back up?' schedule the backup frequency. For someone who's files are a matter of life or death you can schedule for every day. For others, once a week should suffice.
- Click 'OK' and your first back up should begin. You may notice the first backup takes a long time. Don't worry because after the first backup Windows will only backup files that have changed and will be much faster. Once you see your first backup start you are good to go.
Backup a Mac OS X Computer
Here's how to back up your Mac OS X computer.
- Plug in your external hard drive to your computer.
- A popup will appear asking if you want to use this backup with time machine. Click 'Use as Backup Disk'. If for some reason a popup doesn't open go to System Preferences >> Time Machine and click 'Select Disk…' to choose your external hard drive.
- That's it. Time Machine will now take hourly backups for the last 24 hours, daily backups for the last month, and weekly backups until your external hard drive is full. When this happens Time Machine will start deleting your oldest backups to make room for new ones. Also, just like Windows, the first backup may take a while, but subsequent backups will be much faster.
*Note: Time Machine does offer some options for customizing your backups. If you want to exclude files or include an additional hard drive go to System Preferences >> Time Machine and click 'Options'.
I know some people have operating systems other than Windows 7 and Mac OS X. Here is an article to help you if you have a different operating system.
Backup Mac Laptop To Icloud
Do you have any other tips to help people backup their files? Have you ever lost everything to a failed hard drive? Let us know in the comments.
Resources
How to Use Backup and Restore in Windows 7
Mac 101: Time Machine
How to Backup and Restore Your Mac Using Time Machine
Images courtesy of Wikipedia and IconArchive Best video app for mac.
