Mac Guides

Beginner

5 min read 6 stepsApril 19, 2026Verified April 2026

How to Back Up Your Mac to an External Hard Drive

Use Time Machine to back up your Mac to an external drive — what you need, how to set it up, and how to restore files when you need them.

At a Glance

Get an external hard drive

~36s

You need a hard drive (also called an external drive or external hard disk) with enough space to store your backups. Look for a 1 TB (terabyte) or 2 TB external drive — these are widely available at electronics stores like Best Buy, at Costco, Amazon, or Walmart. Look for brands like Seagate, Western Digital (WD), or Toshiba. Prices range from about $40 to $80. Make sure the drive connects via USB (most do), and that it comes with a cable.

Quick Tip

1 TB of storage holds about 250,000 photos or a complete backup of most Mac computers. If your Mac has a lot of video files, get a 2 TB drive to be safe.

Connect the external drive to your Mac

~24s

Plug the external hard drive into your Mac using the included USB cable. On newer Macs with only USB-C ports, you may need a USB-C adapter (a small dongle that converts the regular USB port to USB-C). After plugging in, macOS may ask if you want to use the drive for Time Machine — if it does, click "Use as Backup Disk." If it doesn't ask automatically, proceed to the next step.

Open Time Machine preferences

~16s

Click the Apple logo in the top left corner of your screen. Click "System Settings" (on macOS Ventura and later) or "System Preferences" (on older macOS versions). In System Settings, click "General" in the left sidebar, then "Time Machine." In System Preferences, click the Time Machine icon directly.

Select the backup disk

~33s

In the Time Machine settings window, click "Add Backup Disk" or "Select Disk." You'll see a list of available drives — click on the name of your external hard drive. Click "Use Disk" or "Set Up Disk." Time Machine will ask if you want to erase the drive and format it for backups (if the drive is new and empty, click Erase to format it). Time Machine will then be turned on and the first backup will begin automatically.

Warning

Formatting the drive will erase everything already on it. Only click Erase if the drive is new or if you have no important files on it already.

Monitor your backup progress

~32s

You'll see a Time Machine icon appear in your menu bar at the top right of your screen (it looks like a clock with a circular arrow). Click it to see the backup status. The first backup will say something like "Backing up: 20 GB of 300 GB." Let the backup run. It may take several hours the first time. Your Mac can be used normally during this time, though it may run slightly slower.

Quick Tip

Leave your Mac plugged into power and the external drive connected during the first backup — it's a long process and you don't want it interrupted.

Restore a file from a Time Machine backup

~31s

If you ever accidentally delete a file or want to recover an older version of a document, click the Time Machine icon in the menu bar and choose "Enter Time Machine." Your screen will fill with a visual timeline — you'll see your files arranged in space and time. Use the arrows on the right side to go back in time. When you see the file or folder you want to recover, click it to select it, then click "Restore." Time Machine will copy it back to its original location on your Mac.

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Backing up your Mac is one of the most important things you can do to protect your files, photos, and documents. If your Mac is ever lost, stolen, or damaged — or if the hard drive fails unexpectedly — a backup means you won't lose anything.

Apple has built a backup tool directly into every Mac called Time Machine. Time Machine works automatically in the background whenever an external hard drive is connected to your Mac. It saves hourly backups for the past 24 hours, daily backups for the past month, and weekly backups for all previous months, until the drive is full. It then deletes the oldest backups to make room for new ones.

What you need:

- A Mac running macOS (any recent version) - An external hard drive with at least as much storage as your Mac's hard drive (ideally 2–3 times more). A 1 TB drive costs around $40–$60 at most retail stores and is usually enough for most people. - A USB or USB-C cable (the drive usually comes with one)

Once Time Machine is set up and your backup drive is plugged in, backups happen automatically. You can go about your day while the backup runs in the background. The first backup may take several hours since it's copying everything — subsequent backups only save what has changed since the last backup, so they're much faster.

If you ever need to restore a file — even an accidentally deleted one — Time Machine lets you go back to any point in time and recover it.

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Official Resources

Apple Support How-To Geek — Mac Apple Support YouTube

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