How To Backup Mac To External Hard Drive Using Disk Utility?
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Because of its gorgeous design and superior operating system, millions of people flock to acquire a Mac. The contents on the laptop, however, are far more significant than the laptop itself. It’s critical to understand How To Backup Mac To External Hard Drive Using Disk Utility? In the event of damage or malfunction, you can save all of your files.
Fortunately, Apple recognizes the importance of personal files to its consumers. As a result, the tech behemoth ships its PCs with tools that are expressly meant to assist you in backing up all of your data. Time Machine is built-in software for macOS that lets you back up files including documents, images, and apps.

You’ll need to Connect An External Hard Disc To Your Mac to use Time Machine (check out our list of the best external hard drives). From here, we’ll walk you through all you need to know about creating and saving a back of all your files, beginning with some pointers on what to do before you start.
How To Backup Mac To External Hard Drive Using Disk Utility?
- Prepare a backup hard disk. Pick your external disk in Disk Utility, and then select Mac OS Extended (Journaled) as the Format option.
- Activate Time Machine. Click Time Machine in System Preferences right now.
- Choosing a backup disk In Time Machine, select the backup disk by clicking the button.
How To Create A Hard Disc Drive Backup For Your Mac?
On macOS, Backing Up All Of Your Files is straightforward, and since Time Machine comes installed, getting started is a breeze. It’s also free to use when most other solutions charge a fee. Some features are missing.
For example, while you can tell Time Machine to conduct automatic backups, you can’t tell how often they should happen. Time Machine, on the other hand, can create hourly backups for the previous 24 hours, daily backups for the previous month, or monthly backups for all prior months.
There’s also no way to clone a drive. This means you won’t be able to repeat your hard disc and use it to easily boot up your system and all of its contents without first restoring your files. Mac Backup solution isn’t a horrible alternative because it lacks those added features.
It provides everything most people require to back up their Mac. Let’s get started with our step-by-step tutorial on supporting your Mac to an external device using Time Machine.
Make A Manual Backup Of Your Mac’s External Hard Drive
You can routinely back up the Mac External Hard Drive to some other external hard drive to prevent data loss once you’ve placed all of your important information on it. The following are the Backup A Mac procedures:
- Attach your external drive with your important data. Connect a second, empty hard drive with enough storage capacity.
- Drag and drop your files or folders from your source hard drive to the target hard drive. Otherwise, copy and paste information from the device driver to the target drive using Command + C and Command + V.
- Make three copies of your store medium as backups.
- Make two backup copies on two distinct storage media, such as a hard drive and a solid-state drive.
- Back up one copy to an offsite location, such as a remote repository or iCloud.
Use Disk Utility To Make A Backup Of Your External Hard Drive
Cloning is the process of copying a source storage medium to a destination storage medium. If the primary drive dies, becomes corrupt, or you remove data by accident, the clone drive can help you recover your data. The following is the procedure for copying your external hard drive.
Warning: If the Erase option is selected during cloning, the target drive will be formatted. To avoid data loss, preserve any important data on the destination drive before cloning. Select Finder > Applications > Utilities from the menu bar.
Disk Utility can be launched by double-clicking it. In Disk Utility’s sidebar, choose the destination drive, and then select the Restore tab. Choose the source drive from the Restore from the pull-down option. Select Restore from the menu.
Once the cloning is complete, click done. The destination drive has now been transformed into a clone or backup of the source drive. To recover from a data loss calamity, use one of the two drives.
Use Cloning Software To Back Up Your External Hard Drive
On the Mac, you may discover a variety of third-party software that allows you to clone your hard drive. The following are the steps to duplicate (or backup) an external drive:
- On your MBP, MBA, iMac, or Mac mini, download and install Mac cloning software.
- Connect the Mac to your external source and destination drives.
- Run the software and choose a source drive to clone.
- After selecting the destination drive, click Clone. When the cloning is finished, click OK.
How Do I Automatically Backup My Mac To An External Hard Drive?
Alternatively, select System Preferences from the Apple menu, and then click Time Machine. Select Backup Disk by clicking. Click Use Disk after selecting the disk’s name. Time Machine starts automatically and without any further involvement creating regular backups right away.
How Long Does It Take To Backup A Mac To An External Hard Drive?
For systems with several data and applications installed, the initial backup will take some time. If your Mac is brand new and has very little data on it, doing a backup shouldn’t take more than 5 or 10 minutes. For us, it only took Time Machine about 10 minutes to finish its initial 10 GB backup.
Conclusion
Finally, here we conclude all about How To Backup Mac To External Hard Drive Using Disk Utility? your Mac will boot up from the back you just created. You’ll have to restart your laptop to get back to your startup disc.
If you don’t want to lose your data, you should make backing up your Mac a routine. It’s safe to say that if you can’t recall the very last time, you copied your data, it’s time to do so again. Your iOS and macOS devices can be backed up in a variety of ways.
You can pick the one that best meets your needs, or you can combine approaches for different sorts of data. In addition to Disk Utility, you can use iCloud to back up your images and Time Machine to make a copy of larger files.
Frequently Asked Questions
What’s the best way to get everything off my Mac and onto an external hard drive?
Slide and drop files and documents from your Mac’s Terminal window into the external hard drive’s pane. A progress indicator shows on your screen in the form of a status bar. Wait until the entire transfer is finished.
Is it possible to clone a Mac hard drive using Disk Utility?
Even though the app relates to the procedure as restore, as in data recovery from a source drive to a target disc, Disk Utility has always been able to make clones. It supports disc images, hard discs, SSDs, and USB flash drives, among other storage devices that can be mounted on your Mac.
Why am I unable to drag anything onto my Mac?
If your Mac Trackpad or Mac Mouse has Bluetooth, try turning Bluetooth off and then on again. Toggling Bluetooth off and on again can sometimes fix strange situations, such as drag and drop not working.
Is Apple Time Machine capable of cloning a hard drive?
Your Mac will run a little slower, but it will still work and retain whatever was on your internal hard drive when the clone was created or last updated. You could check if it will run simply by booting from it (but you can’t be certain that everything is working without actually executing it).