Mac Time Machine Overview: What Is It & How to Use It?

If you are a new user of macOS and want to learn what Time Machine is on Mac or just preparing to use Time Machine on Mac but know nothing about it, you can read this post to get a full understanding of Mac Time Machine.

What is Time Machine on Mac?

Developed by Apple, Time Machine is a built-in backup feature in macOS that was introduced in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard and refined in later versions. It is designed to help you back up the system files and your personal data, including photos, documents, apps, emails, etc. to the attached external hard drives or USB flash drives.

Worth mentioning that, the auto-backup feature of Time Machine enables an up-to-date copy of the backed up files hourly in the past 24 hours, daily in the past month, or weekly in all the past time.

With the Time Machine backups, you can recover the corrupted and accidentally deleted files, and transfer files to a new Mac machine. If you've backed up your whole Mac with Time Machine, you can even use the Time Machine backup disk to start up the Mac that won't boot.

Moreover, Time Machine on the Mac also automatically saves one local snapshot of the startup disk hourly and keeps an extra snapshot before installing the macOS update (only for macOS High Sierra or later). That gives you a chance to restore your Mac when the Time Machine backups are not available for some reason.

Is Time Machine on Mac necessary?

Yes. Time Machine helps you back up all files on your Mac for later restoration if needed. Despite the popularity of cloud storage now, it is also important for you to use Time Machine to back up your Mac files.

Different from the cloud storage that syncs data on your Mac through the network, Time Machine helps back up all files, including the system files, to a physical hard drive, which is more secure and stable. When your Mac won't boot, you can use the Time Machine backup drive to boot up your Mac and restore your files. That is what an online backup service cannot do.

Therefore, it is suggested to use Time Machine to back up your Mac as well even if you have chosen online backup services. That's because some users encounter different online backup issues, like iCloud not syncing on Mac. When that happens, a Time Machine backup helps a lot.

Is Time Machine automatically set up on Mac?

Yes. By default, after Time Machine finishes the first backup task, it will automatically update the changed files on the basis of the initial backup. Time Machine does the auto-backup work every hour only if the destination storage device is kept connecting to your Mac.

If you tick the Back Up Automatically option in Time Machine preferences, Time Machine will automatically begin to back up files on your Mac every time you plug the external storage device into your Mac.

How to use Time Machine on Mac?

You can use Time Machine back up everything on your Mac or just your desired files. Conversely, when you need to restore the lost files, you can find these files in the Time Machine backup disk or open the Time Machine app in Launchpad to restore the data with local snapshots.

To back up your Mac with Time Machine:

To restore files from Time Machine backup:

If you want to learn more details about how to back up and restore with Time Machine, read this post: How to use Time Machine on Mac to back up and restore files. 

If you're looking for a backup drive, AirPort Time Capsule can meet your demands which can provide 3TB storage space with the latest version.

If the Time Machine backup failed, fix it with the solutions in this guide: Time Machine Couldn't Complete the Backup on Mac [Fixed]