Time Machine is the built-in backup solution in macOS, automatically making backups of your Mac onto an external drive. It’s easy to set up, and after that, you don’t even need to worry about it. But if you want to customize your experience to fit more particular needs or use cases, you absolutely can.
What is Time Machine?
Time Machine is Apple’s built-in solution for backing up macOS. You can connect an external hard drive over USB or Thunderbolt (or FireWire, for older Macs) for a wired connection, or over a network for a wireless connection. Time Machine backs up every hour, deleting older backups as the backup drive starts running out of space.
It’s a great first layer to any backup solution, and it’s included right in the operating system.
Getting started with Time Machine
First, the basics. Get Time Machine set up, then learn about how you can choose what’s backed up, how to restore from Time Machine, how to encrypt backups, and more.
Digging in to Time Machine
So you’ve got everything set up and you know the basics of Time Machine. But there are some advanced steps that you should know about.
Any other questions?
If you have any additional questions about getting started with or using Time Machine, let us know in the comments.