A proper Time Machine backup
Time Machine is built into your Mac, it is excellent, and it asks for nothing more than a drive and five minutes of setup. Turning it on is almost never the problem: the problem is checking, a year later, that it is still running.
What is actually going on
A backup that has never been tested is a promise, not a protection. We regularly find drives unplugged for months, backups stopped by a silent error, or a drive too small ever to have finished its first copy.
The right drive matters too: allow at least twice the size of your data, choose a model meant to stay connected, and keep it somewhere other than the bag your laptop lives in — a backup stolen alongside the computer protects nothing.
What we do
- Choose and prepare the driveCapacity, format, the right connection for your Mac. We advise before you buy if you do not have one yet.
- Start the first backup and see it throughIt is the longest, and the one that most often fails. We stay until it completes.
- Check that it genuinely worksWe restore a file at random in front of you. That is the only check that proves anything.
- Show you how to read its stateWhere to look, what a healthy backup looks like, and when to worry.
Before we arrive
What helps
- Leave the drive permanently connected if your Mac stays put, or connect it at least once a week.
- Keep the drive somewhere other than the laptop bag.
What is better avoided
- Using the same drive for backups and for storing your photos: the day it fails, everything goes together.
- Treating iCloud as a backup — it is a sync: a file deleted by mistake disappears everywhere.
Your questions
Isn’t iCloud enough?
No, and it is a common confusion. iCloud synchronises: delete a folder and it is deleted in the cloud too. Time Machine keeps history, and therefore the state from before the mistake.
How often should it be checked?
Twice a year is enough if the drive stays connected. It is also one of the points we cover in the general check-up we do for our clients.
This topic is part of I want to back up or recover my photos and documents. The main page gathers the neighbouring cases and the full process.
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