Since the past week I have been excitedly looking forward to attending the marriage ceremony of my dear friend Julie, who had emailed me her wedding card. I was able to take the printout of the invitation card and the location map by following the steps for connecting a printer to a MacBook without installing the drivers. When I narrated the entire episode to my Dad, he was impressed with me. He asked me what wedding gift I was giving to Julie. I replied that I still had not made up my mind. At first, I made a plan with Dad to visit a nearby store, but he could not accompany me due to his busy schedule. But to my pleasant surprise, Dad gave me his credit card to buy the gift. I decided to shop online using the credit card.
Today when I came home early from work, I switched on my MacBook and started surfing the Internet to buy a suitable gift for my friend. It was the first time that I was using my MacBook to make an online purchase. While I was accessing Internet using the Safari browser, the notebook hanged and some system messages were displayed. I quickly rebooted my notebook and updated the browser. I also deleted the web cache and other unnecessary files from the hard disk drive. Moreover, I carried out an online virus scan for the detection and removal of malicious files. Though, I was aware of the fact that the Mac operating system is secure, I did not want to take any risk. Luckily, the online scan did not find any virus.
This incident of my computer hanging made me think, what if a system crash leads to loss of important files and data? Therefore, I started searching for an application to create a backup of my files. I checked the apps on my MacBook and found that Time Machine was all I needed to backup files. Time Machine is an app that can automatically create a backup of all the files and system settings. One can also easily restore the entire system using Time Machine. I connected an external drive to the MacBook for creating a backup.
Before initiating the backup procedure, I closed the web browser and other applications. In order to start the backup, I performed the steps which are mentioned below.
- Open ‘System Preferences’ in MacBook to access the Time Machine app
- For easy monitoring of the backup procedure, use Time Machine and tick the checkbox next to ‘Show Time Machine’ in menu bar. This will allow you to keep a track of the entire backup process without entering the system preferences
- Once the backup program is launched, click on ‘Select Disk’
- Select your external drive as the destination drive
- To start the backup process, click on the ‘Backup’ option given in the menu bar of Time Machine
In this way, I was able to backup all the files and system settings on my MacBook. Not only this, I also customized the settings to allow the program to automatically backup my files in future. I heaved a sigh of relief as now there was a backup of all files that I could use in case the system crashed. After checking out some shopping portals, I ordered a stylish looking wristwatch for Julie. Now I am eagerly waiting for the day when I will attend her wedding.
The post How I created a backup of files on Apple® MacBook using Time Machine appeared first on iYogi.
