After that, you can remove the external drive from your Mac. The backup process will be started and processed automatically, so you should just wait until it’s completed. If you have used another disk for backup before, you’ll be asked Do you want to stop backing up to the previous disk and use the new disk, or back up to both.If the disk you selected to back up data is not formatted by Time Machine, you should click Erase in the prompt window to confirm.Step 3: erase disk or stop backing up to the previous disk. You can also click on the Options button to decide which data to backup.You can check Encrypt backups to secure your backup.Select the external disk you connected as the backup disk from the list.Click on the Select Backup Disk button (it's also named Select Disk in some systems).Click Apple menu -> select System Preferences -> click Time Machine.Step 2: open Time Machine and select disk. Please read the following ways carefully to know how to backup Mac yourself (these ways work for how to backup MacBook to external hard drive, how to backup iMac to external hard drive, etc.). It’s easier to access an external drive: the external drive can be accessed from any devices while you can’t access the internal drive if your Mac is crashed/dead.The internal hard drive, especially the old ones, can get full easily.The backup should be made regularly and it will occupy much disk space.Why backup to external hard drive, not internal hard drive? There are mainly 3 reasons:

How to backup Mac to external hard drive is asked frequently when users have valuable data stored on Mac. Backup is a simple and the most effective way to prevent important data loss. It is saved elsewhere on computer or external device so that it can be used to restore the original data when they are missing or corrupted.

This page on MiniTool will show you how to backup Mac to external hard drive in 5 ways.īackup, also called data backup, is actually a copy of computer data. Well, backup is the most direct and effective way to prevent data loss and avoid unnecessary problems caused by it. Data loss is a common and eternal topic on the internet. Backup is very important for computer usage since your business data or personal data may be lost suddenly from a computer.

Mac backup external hard drive