How to Create a Backup for a Mac Without Time Machine

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A guide to making a backup of your Mac with an external drive

Co-authored by Chiara Corsaro and Jack Lloyd

Last Updated: March 19, 2024

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Connecting an External Drive

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Backing Up

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Video

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Expert Q&A

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Tips

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Warnings

This wikiHow article teaches you how to create a backup of your Mac's hard drive contents without using Time Machine.

How do you back up a Mac without using Time Machine?

You can back up a Mac without Time Machine by using an external drive.
Connect your external drive with the USB. Depending on your Mac model, you may need to buy an adapter.
You must format your hard drive to prepare it for back ups.

Part 1

Part 1 of 2:

Connecting an External Drive

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1
Buy an external hard drive. Since you'll be using the external hard drive to back up your entire Mac hard drive, the drive should be bigger than your Mac's drive (e.g., if the Mac's drive is 256 GB, get at least a 500 GB external drive).^{[1]
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Research source}
- It's often not much more expensive to buy a 1 terabyte (1024 gigabyte) external hard drive than it is to buy a 500 gigabyte external hard drive, so consider spending the extra $20 or so to get more storage.
- You'll generally want to buy an external hard drive that both has enough space for you and comes from a reliable manufacturer such as Western Digital or Seagate.
- If you don't have an external hard drive, you can also use a CD, DVD, or USB flash drive.^{[2]
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  Expert Source
  
  Chiara Corsaro
  Phone & Computer Repair Technician
  
  Expert Interview. 18 October 2019.}
- You may also try a cloud storage site, such as iCloud, Google Drive, or Dropbox.^{[3]
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  Expert Source
  
  Chiara Corsaro
  Phone & Computer Repair Technician
  
  Expert Interview. 18 October 2019.}
2
Plug your external hard drive into your Mac. Attach the USB end of the hard drive's cable to one of your Mac's USB ports, then attach the other end to the hard drive.
- Most modern Macs have USB-C (also known as Thunderbolt) ports rather than traditional USB 3.0 ports. If this is the case for you, you may need to buy a USB 3.0 to USB-C adapter for your Mac before you can attach your external hard drive.
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3
Format your external hard drive. Formatting allows the hard drive to work on your Mac's operating system; failing to format the drive means that you won't be able to use it.
- Make sure to select Mac OS Extended (Journaled) as the File System value.
. FileVault makes it impossible to clone your Mac's hard drive, so you'll need to disable FileVault if you ever had it enabled.
Click the Apple menu
, click Restart... in the drop-down menu, and click Restart Now when prompted. Your Mac will begin to restart.
You'll need to do this immediately after clicking Restart Now and hold them until the recovery screen appears.
It resembles a spinning globe. Once the icon appears, you can release the ⌘ Command and R keys. Your Mac will continue loading the Recovery screen; when it finishes, you can proceed to the next part.

Part 2

Part 2 of 2:

Backing Up

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It's in the middle of the Recovery window.
This option is in the bottom-right corner of the window. Doing so opens the Disk Utility window.
Click your external hard drive's name or letter in the left-hand side of the window.
This menu item is in the upper-left corner of the screen. A drop-down menu will appear.
It's in the drop-down menu. This will open a pop-up window.
Click the "Restore from" drop-down box, then click your Mac's hard drive's name in the resulting drop-down menu.
It's a blue button on the right side of the window. This will prompt your Mac's hard drive's contents to begin copying over to your external hard drive.
When prompted, you're free to restart your Mac and begin using it like usual.
Eject your external hard drive. This will ensure that the information stored on the drive doesn't accidentally get corrupted.

Expert Q&A

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Question

How do I back up my Mac immediately?

Chiara Corsaro
Phone & Computer Repair Technician
Chiara Corsaro is the General Manager and Apple Certified Mac & iOS Technician for macVolks, Inc., an Apple Authorized Service Provider located in the San Francisco Bay Area. macVolks, Inc. was founded in 1990, is accredited by the Better Business Bureau (BBB) with an A+ rating, and is part of the Apple Consultants Network (ACN).

Chiara Corsaro

Phone & Computer Repair Technician

Expert Answer

Backing up with Time Machine is relatively simple and only requires that you have an external hard drive—you don't need a Time Capsule (or AirPort) hard drive from Apple to use Time Machine.

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Question

Will this remove the data that is already on the hard drive?

Community Answer

None of the above will remove the data that is already on the Mac's main, internal hard drive. However, Step 3 of Part 1 will remove the data that is already on the external hard drive.

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Question

Can I use an external HDD with ExFat formatting?

Community Answer

Yes, you can. This is helpful if you want to use the same HDD with Mac and Windows both.

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Tips

This process is also known as "imaging" your hard drive, because it creates a perfect image of your hard drive's contents and their exact locations.

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Warnings

Data stored on external hard drives can decay with the passage of time. Be sure to routinely back up your Mac (e.g., once every month).

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