Ways To Backup Mac

1. Ways To Back Up My Computer
2. Ways To Backup Pc

Have you ever had trouble finding a photo and feared the worst — that you accidentally deleted it? Or maybe you've heard a friend bemoan of how their hard drive failed and they lost everything from pictures of their firstborn to that once-in-a-lifetime selfie with Michael Jordan?

1. Check Back Up Automatically in the left pane of the dialog box if you want your Mac to back up at regular intervals. Check Show Time Machine in menu bar to create a shortcut in the menu bar to Time Machine preferences and backup status.
2. Best Ways to Back up Your Mac iMore 2020. One of the most important things that you need to do with your Mac is — and I can't stress how important it is — backing up. No matter who you are or what you do for a living, chances are high that you pretty much have your life on your Mac, or at least close to it.
3. How much space do I need for a backup? To see the size of a specific file or folder, click it once and then press Command-I. To see storage information about your Mac, click the Apple menu in.

After taking a moment to realize how fortunate you've been to have not lost any pics yourself, you probably think, 'I should start backing up my photos.' Well, you've found the right article. We're going to go through a few solutions for backing up your Mac and, more specifically, your photo collection. Because while losing an important piece of work is tragic, it's usually replaceable. The moments that your pictures represent are fleeting, and there's no way to recreate them.

The first backup may take a long time, depending on how many files you have, but you can continue using your Mac while a backup is underway. Time Machine backs up only the files that changed since the previous backup, so future backups will be faster. To start a backup manually, choose Back Up Now from the Time Machine menu in the menu bar. There is a higher probability of making errors and which is prone to data loss. There is no provision for selective back up of data. The Bottom Line. In this blog, we have explained the best way to Backup IMAP Email Outlook and tried to make it less daunting for the users. A third party tool i.e. IMAP Server Backup Tool for Mac OS is provided.

There's truth in the phrase 'garbage in, garbage out'. So before you even ask yourself, 'How do I back up my photos?' you'll want to make sure your photo library is cleaned up. Space is precious, so backing up duplicate and almost-duplicate pictures will be a waste.

Thankfully, a Mac app like Gemini 2 can help you unclutter your photos before you back them up. And the best part is, you can download it for free to give it a try.

Best ways to back up your photos on Mac

As mentioned earlier, there are a couple ways to go about backing up your photos. The ones we're going to go over are:

• iCloud
• Time Machine
• Google Photos
• External hard drive

After reading this article, you'll be able to weigh out the cost versus convenience for each of these options and see which one works best for you. At the end of the day, the best way to backup photos is the one that's easy for you to use on a regular basis.

1. How to backup photos to iCloud

The first method is the one that comes standard with your Mac and doesn't require you to install any additional software. iCloud is cloud-based storage made by Apple and available to anyone with an AppleID. Using iCloud to backup photos is easy thanks to automatic backups and syncing, built into both iPhone and Mac. All you have to do is make sure iCloud is turned on on each device, and you're all set.

The catch, as there always is, is that you only get 5 GB for free. And that includes not only photos, but also anything else you decide to store on your iCloud drive. Additional storage can be purchased and is fairly affordable compared to other cloud storages.

Setup iCloud Photos backup

When you backup your photos to iCloud, not only does it save your pictures to the cloud, but it also saves them on all of your devices. Since we're talking mainly about your Mac in this article, you can follow the steps below to see how to save iCloud Photos to your Mac:

1. Go to System Preferences > iCloud.
2. Click Options next to Photos.
3. Select iCloud Photos.

After you turn on iCloud Photos, you'll get access to other options for syncing and sharing your photos.

This might be helpful: The beginner's guide to iCloud Photo Sharing

2. How to backup photos to Time Machine

The next type of backup veers away from the cloud-based model. Time Machine is the built-in Mac application that will automatically backup your Mac to an external hard drive. Which means you will have to buy an external drive or use a network drive, but the bright side is as long as you have the hard drive plugged in your Mac will be backed up.

One of the major benefits to Time Machine is that it's a differential backup. That means that after the initial backup it will only back up the files that are new and/or changed. So every backup after the first one will be faster because, in theory, it's backing up fewer files.

Does Time Machine back up my photo library?

There can be some confusion as to what Time Machine backs up once it's configured. Simply put, it backs up everything, including any photos stored on your Mac.

That being said the easiest way to search for photos and/or restore things from your backup is to ensure you're using the Photos app on your computer. If you just have random photos scattered throughout your Mac it can be harder to track those down, whereas Photos helps you keep your library organized.

Setup Time Machine backup

Because Time Machine backs up everything on your computer, any duplicates you have taking up space on your computer's hard drive will also waste space in your backup. The Mac app, Gemini 2, can scan your hard drive to help you quickly find and remove duplicate files.

Once you plug an external hard drive into your Mac, you should be automatically prompted to use the drive with Time Machine. If you're not, you can do it manually:

1. Go to Apple > System Preferences > Time Machine.
2. Click Select Disk.
3. In the Time Machine preferences window, select your external drive from the list of available disks.
4. Then click Use Disk.

If the hard drive is not formatted properly to be used with Time Machine, you'll be prompted to format it. You'll also notice an option to encrypt the hard drive and your backup, which adds an extra level of security in case you misplace the external drive.

3. How to backup photos to Google Photos

The next option is another cloud-based backup solution, Google Photos. While not as well-integrated into iPhone and Mac as iCloud, Google Photos offers equally easy setup and ongoing backups.

The biggest difference between Google Photos and iCloud though is that with Google Photos you can store an unlimited amount of pictures — as long as you agree to have those photos compressed. While most people won't notice the difference between compressed and uncompressed photos, it's still something worth noting. If you choose to upload your images at full quality, you'll be using your Google Drive space, of which you get 15GB for free. Additional storage can be purchased.

Setup Google Photos to backup pictures

Like iCloud, Google handles backups on a per-device basis, but in this case we'll be covering how to set up a Google Photos backup on Mac:

1. Download and install the Google Backup and Sync app on your Mac
2. Sign in with your Google Account
3. Select whether to back up only photos or videos or all files
4. Select all folders you want to back up
5. Under 'Photo & video upload size,' select your upload quality
6. Click Start

This might be helpful: Best photo sharing sites you can use for free

4. Backup photos to an External hard drive

This last option will definitely take the most manual labor. On the other hand, using an external hard drive will give you the most control over what you're backing up, and many prefer to have it the old-fashioned way. Whether you're using Photos, another photo manager, or just have pictures scattered around your Mac, you'll be able to back them up. It'll just take you a little bit of time to do it yourself.

Of course, if you have iCloud turned on your Mac, you can also backup your iCloud photos to an external hard drive as a secondary back up.

How to back up Photos Library to an external hard drive

1. Open Finder > Pictures (or wherever your images are)
2. Select your Photos Library, the folder you want to back up, or individual files
3. Drag and drop the file onto your external hard drive in the left column.

While this method gives you the most freedom and assurance that you're backing up exactly what you want, if you make any changes to your Photo Library on Mac, you'll have to back it up all over again.

As you back up and re-back up photos to an external drive, eventually you might find it riddled with duplicates. Gemini 2, the Mac app we mentioned earlier, can also scan your external HDD for duplicate photos, making it easy to delete them.

Now that you've got some idea on how to back up your photos, it's time to get started. The most important thing to keep in mind is that a backup is only as good as the last time it was done. So back up your pictures early, and back them up often. And if you're truly worried about it — why only have just one photo backup? Combine a cloud-based option with an external HDD and sleep well knowing your memories are safe.

We cannot put too much emphasis on backing up your files in today's digital world. Even though Mac has a built-in tool called Trash to hold your deleted files, chances are that you find some important files lost from the emptied Trash.

This article will introduce five ways you can back up your Mac, even when the Mac has booting-up related issues.

How to back up a Mac that won't boot

It is a terrific situation when your Mac is not starting up successfully. It could result from hardware failures or software conflicts, both of which will confront you with permanent data loss. Therefore, backing up the Mac files should be the first thing you have to do before you try to make the Mac boot again. On a non-booting Mac, the methods are very limited.

Disk Utility from Recovery Mode

We are using macOS 10.14 on our Mac mini. If you are using an earlier OS X version, the interface will be slightly different.

1. Connect an external drive to the Mac and make sure it has enough spare capacity to back up your Mac.
2. Restart the Mac and immediately press down Command + R keys simultaneously.
3. Release the keys until you see the Apple logo.
4. Wait the Mac to boot into Recovery Mode.
5. Select Disk Utility and click on Continue button.
6. Select the disk you want to back up (usually named as Macintosh HD).
7. Select File in the top menu bar and then go to New Image and Image from Macintosh HD (or your disk name).
8. Choose your external hard drive as the location and keep anything else as default.
9. Click Save.
10. Wait until you are notified that the backup process completes.

Target Disk Mode

Another way you can back up files from a Mac that won't start up is to use Target Disk Mode. Target Disk Mode will require you have two compatible Mac and one of them will appear as an external hard disk on the other after they are connected through FireWire or Thunderbolt ports.

Target Disk Mode won't work if your Mac startup disk is corrupted or the startup disk is encrypted by T2 security chip.

1. Connect the two Mac computers with a FireWire or Thunderbolt cable.
2. Restart the unbootable Mac and immediately press down the T key.
3. Transfer files from the disk icon that appears on the other Mac's desktop.
4. Eject the disk by dragging it to the Trash (Trash icon will become Eject when you are dragging the disk).

Note: Target Disk Mode can also be used to back up a Mac that can start up. You need to go to System Preferences, find Startup Disk and then choose Target Disk Mode.

How to back up Photos Library to an external hard drive

1. Open Finder > Pictures (or wherever your images are)
2. Select your Photos Library, the folder you want to back up, or individual files
3. Drag and drop the file onto your external hard drive in the left column.

While this method gives you the most freedom and assurance that you're backing up exactly what you want, if you make any changes to your Photo Library on Mac, you'll have to back it up all over again.

As you back up and re-back up photos to an external drive, eventually you might find it riddled with duplicates. Gemini 2, the Mac app we mentioned earlier, can also scan your external HDD for duplicate photos, making it easy to delete them.

Now that you've got some idea on how to back up your photos, it's time to get started. The most important thing to keep in mind is that a backup is only as good as the last time it was done. So back up your pictures early, and back them up often. And if you're truly worried about it — why only have just one photo backup? Combine a cloud-based option with an external HDD and sleep well knowing your memories are safe.

We cannot put too much emphasis on backing up your files in today's digital world. Even though Mac has a built-in tool called Trash to hold your deleted files, chances are that you find some important files lost from the emptied Trash.

This article will introduce five ways you can back up your Mac, even when the Mac has booting-up related issues.

How to back up a Mac that won't boot

It is a terrific situation when your Mac is not starting up successfully. It could result from hardware failures or software conflicts, both of which will confront you with permanent data loss. Therefore, backing up the Mac files should be the first thing you have to do before you try to make the Mac boot again. On a non-booting Mac, the methods are very limited.

Disk Utility from Recovery Mode

We are using macOS 10.14 on our Mac mini. If you are using an earlier OS X version, the interface will be slightly different.

1. Connect an external drive to the Mac and make sure it has enough spare capacity to back up your Mac.
2. Restart the Mac and immediately press down Command + R keys simultaneously.
3. Release the keys until you see the Apple logo.
4. Wait the Mac to boot into Recovery Mode.
5. Select Disk Utility and click on Continue button.
6. Select the disk you want to back up (usually named as Macintosh HD).
7. Select File in the top menu bar and then go to New Image and Image from Macintosh HD (or your disk name).
8. Choose your external hard drive as the location and keep anything else as default.
9. Click Save.
10. Wait until you are notified that the backup process completes.

Target Disk Mode

Another way you can back up files from a Mac that won't start up is to use Target Disk Mode. Target Disk Mode will require you have two compatible Mac and one of them will appear as an external hard disk on the other after they are connected through FireWire or Thunderbolt ports.

Target Disk Mode won't work if your Mac startup disk is corrupted or the startup disk is encrypted by T2 security chip.

1. Connect the two Mac computers with a FireWire or Thunderbolt cable.
2. Restart the unbootable Mac and immediately press down the T key.
3. Transfer files from the disk icon that appears on the other Mac's desktop.
4. Eject the disk by dragging it to the Trash (Trash icon will become Eject when you are dragging the disk).

Note: Target Disk Mode can also be used to back up a Mac that can start up. You need to go to System Preferences, find Startup Disk and then choose Target Disk Mode.

How to back up a Mac that can boot up

On a working Mac, you have quite a few options about how you want to back up your Mac files.

Time Machine

Time Machine is the built-in software with which you can back up and restore Mac files. Here we are introducing how to use it to back up a Mac.

1. Connect an external drive to the Mac and make sure the external drive has enough capacity and is HFS+ formatted. If it is not HFS+ formatted, the macOS will format it into HFS+ once it is used as the backup drive.
2. Open Time Machine through Apple logo and System Preferences.
3. Click the lock to make changes and input correct administrator password.
4. Click Select Backup Disk and select the attached external drive.
5. Select Back Up Automatically.
6. Click Options to exclude folders or files from backups if you want.

Cloud drive

In addition to local drives to back up files, purchasing a cloud storage service is a good idea. iCloud from Apple will automatically back up all files and apps from Apple devices logging into the same Apple ID. However, like other cloud storage services, you have to pay every month for extended capacity. If you purchase services from other providers, they provide desktop apps with which you can sync files to cloud.

1. Find a cloud storage provider you would like to use.
2. Go to its official website.
3. Sign up with an email account and password.
4. Decide if you need a paid plan.
5. Download its desktop app and set up auto-sync.

Migration Assistant

Migration Assistant is a built-in software that help Mac users to transfer files to another Mac from a Mac, a PC or an external drive. It only moves files but also migrates settings and apps if needed.

On your Mac:

1. Connect to your computer to another Mac.
2. Open Migration Assistant from Finder, Utilities and Applications.
3. Click Continue.
4. Select the option to transfer files to another Mac.
5. Click Continue.

Ways To Back Up My Computer

On the other Mac:

1. Open Migration Assistant too.
2. Click Continue.
3. Select the option to transfer from a Mac, Time Machine backup, or startup disk.
4. Click Continue.

Then just follow the wizard on both Macs to finish the files transferring. Then you will have another set of files on another Mac.

Conclusion

Ways To Backup Pc

Losing important data is unbearable. You have so many options today to help you back up them. Once you set up it correctly, cloud drive and Time Machine will automatically upload the files and update them. Target Disk Mode, Disk Utility system image and Migration Assistant are more complicated to use, but they still can be very useful in certain situations. If you are going to use Target Disk Mode or Migration Assistant, don't forget to back up on a regular basis.