Mac Time Machine Manual Backup

Mac Time Machine Full Backup
Mac Time Machine Manual Backup Software

Windows normally can’t read Time Machine backups — in fact, it doesn’t even understand the HFS+ file system format Macs require on their Time Machine drives. But you can recover all the files from your Time Machine backup on your Windows computer.

This won’t allow you to easily restore settings and applications, which are generally Mac-specific. However, you can extract all your important personal files from the Time Machine backup.

Connect the Drive to Your PC

Back up a Mac. Time Machine is the built-in backup utility for the Mac operating system. It keeps a copy of all your files so you can recover older versions at any time. Further, a Time Machine backup can restore the entire system on your current internal hard drive or a replacement hard drive. Apr 08, 2019 Time Machine is the built-in backup solution in macOS, automatically making backups of your Mac onto an external drive. It's easy to set up, and after that, you don't even need to worry about it. But if you want to customize your experience to fit more particular needs or use cases, you absolutely.

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Either way, the first step is connecting that Mac-formatting Time Machine drive to your Windows computer. Hopefully you’re using a USB drive for Time Machine backups — most Windows PCs aren’t compatible with Thunderbolt.

When you connect the Mac-formatted Time Machine drive to your computer, you won’t see the files on it. That’s because Windows can’t understand the drive’s HFS+ file system. You can normally share drives between a Mac and Windows PC because Macs also understand the common FAT32 file system, but OS X insists that Time Machine drives be formatted with HFS+.

Don’t immediately format the drive with a Windows file system or you’ll lose all the Time Machine backups on it. Windows can’t read it, but all your files are still there.

Read the HFS+ Partition

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You’ll need software that can understand the HFS+ file system to access your Time Machine backup files. The only free application we’ve found for this is HFSExplorer. Unfortunately, it does require Java installed to function — we recommend uninstalling Java immediately after you’re done with HFSExplorer or at least disabling the Java browser plug-in to help protect yourself. Watch out for Oracle’s obnoxious installer junkware when you install it, too.

If you really can’t stand Java, other possible solutions include Paragon’s HFS+ for Windows and Mediafour’s MacDrive. Both of these are paid applications, and you probably don’t want to purchase them just to recover files one time. However, they do offer time-limited trials that will work for a one-time restore process.

Mac Time Machine Full Backup

Open the HFSExplorer application after installing it, click the File menu, and select “Load file system from device.” It should auto-detect the appropriate device for you. If not, you can select devices manually from the “Detected devices” box until one works.

Restoring Files From Your Time Machine Backups

Once you’re viewing the contents of your Mac-formatted Time Machine drive in HFSExplorer, you’ll see a folder named “Backups.backupdb”. This is the Time Machine backups folder.

Underneath it, you’ll find a folder with the name of your Mac. This is the folder that contains all the Time Machine backups from that specific Mac. Under that folder, you’ll see folders named after specific dates and times and a “Latest” folder.

The Latest folder is your most current Time Machine backup. Unless you want to restore old, deleted files or previous versions of files, go to the Latest folder.

Under the Latest folder, you’ll probably see a folder named “Macintosh HD” — that’s the Time Machine backup for your Mac’s system drive. You can restore any files you want from the Mac system, but you’ll find your personal files under Macintosh HD/Users/NAME.

To restore all your personal files to your Windows PC, navigate to this folder, select it, and click the Extract button. HFSExplorer will extract the files from your Time Machine drive and copy them to your Windows partition.

You could also extract individual files or every single backup file. For example, you could dig through the Time Machine backups to look for only the important files, select them, and click the Extract button to extract them. Or, you could select one of the top-level folders — the “Latest” backup for your entire latest backup or the “Backups.backupdb” folder for every single file in the entire Time Machine backup. HFSExplorer would copy the directories and everything inside to your Windows PC. You can then dig through them using normal Windows tools, recovering the files you want and deleting everything you no longer want.

You should probably have HFSExplorer follow symbolic links, although this may result in duplicate files. You can always clean everything up later.

If HFSExplorer doesn’t work for you for some reason, you can always try one of the commercial applications above — their free trials may allow you to get your files off the Time Machine drive this one time without paying a dime.

No, there’s no pretty Time Machine restore interface — it’s all manual. But you can get at all those important Time Machine backup files, even if you don’t have a Mac available to you.

If you do have a Mac nearby, you can always connect that Time Machine drive to the Mac, hold the Option key, click the Time Machine icon on the menu bar, and select “Browse Other Backup Disks.” You can then extract your important files from the Time Machine backup and copy them to an external drive formatted with the FAT32 file system, which Windows can understand.

How to Back Up With Time Machine

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The easiest way to use Time Machine is to connect an external drive to your Mac. You’ll be asked if you want to configure it as a Time Machine drive; click “Use as Backup Disk” if that’s what you want to do. Click the “Encrypt Backup Disk” option if you want to secure your backup disks with encryption.

To check the progress of your backups head to System Preferences > Time Machine.

You can optionally click “Show Time Machine in menu bar” if you’d like to track backups from there.

While external hard drives are the simplest option, it’s also possible to back up wirelessly over the network. The simplest tool for this is Apple’s Airport Time Capsule, a combination router and storage device that makes backing up easy. Sadly, Apple doesn’t seem committed to updating this device anytime soon, but you can use another Mac as a Time Machine server instead, or even a Raspberry Pi if you’re feeling creative.

You can even have your Mac back up to multiple locations, rotating between them so you can have backups in two or more locations.

Enabling Time Machine on a MacBook will also enable the “local snapshots” feature. Your Mac will save a single daily snapshot as well as a single weekly snapshot of your files to its internal storage if the Time Machine backup drive isn’t available. This provides you with a way to recover deleted files or restore previous versions of files even if you’re away from your backup drive for a while.

RELATED:Save Space on Your Time Machine Drive by Excluding These Folders From Backups

While Time Machine does include everything by default, you can click the Options button in the Time Machine window and exclude certain folders. For example, you could exclude your /Applications folder to save space on the Time Machine backup.

Automatic vs. Manual Backups

The first Time Machine backup will take the longest, as everything on your drive is backed up. Future backups won’t take as long, as only new and changed files will have to be backed up.

Time Machine normally functions automatically. If your drive is connected to the computer or the network location is available, it will back up once per hour. You could disconnect your external drive when using your MacBook during the day and plug it in when you get home in the evening. Your Mac would back up when the drive is connected.

You can also choose to perform manual backups instead. To do this, open Time Machine’s settings screen and toggle Time Machine to “Off.” You can then click the Time Machine icon on the menu bar and select “Back Up Now” to perform a manual backup at any time. Automatic backups are usually a better option — you’ll have more backups and you won’t be able to forget about it.

How to Restore Individual Files from a Backup

Click the Time Machine icon on the menu bar and select “Enter Time Machine” to enter the restore interface. This screen allows you to locate deleted files or previous versions of files and restore them.

Select a date and time at the bottom-right corner of the window to “go back in time” to the point where the file you want to restore existed. Dates in pink indicate the backup is stored on an external drive, while dates in white indicate local snapshots stored on your Mac’s internal storage.

Locate a file you want to restore, select it, and click the “Restore” button to restore it to the same folder on your Mac. If it would overwrite and existing file, you’ll be asked what you want to do.

You can also select a file and press the spacebar to preview it with Quick Look before restoring it.

Time Machine includes a search feature as well. Just type a search into the search box in the Finder window inside Time Machine to search for a file you want to restore.

How to Restore an Entire Mac

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Time Machine also allows you to restore an entire Mac’s system state. You can only do this if the backup was created on the same model of Mac. To do this, hold down Command+R as your Mac boots to access Recovery mode. You’ll see an option to restore your entire system from a a Time Machine Backup here.

Time Machine also backs up your macOS Recovery files to your Time Machine backup disk, so you can hold the “Option” key as you boot, select the Time Machine drive, and boot straight to recovery mode even if the recovery system is unavailable on your Mac.

How to Restore Time Machine Backups on Another Mac

To restore files from a Time Machine backup on another Mac, navigate to the /Applications/Utilities folder and open the Migration Assistant application. You can also press Command+Space, search for Migration Assistant, and press Enter.

Connect the Time Machine backup drive and use Migration Assistant to migrate the backed up files from your previous Mac to your new Mac.

Migration Assistant is also offered when setting up a new Mac, making a Time Machine backup a very quick way to get all your files and applications onto a new computer.

How to Restore a Time Machine Backup on Windows

Time Machine requires a drive formatted with the Mac HFS+ file system, so if you want to restore your Time Machine files using Windows, you need you’ll need to install an application like the free HFSExplorer that can read a HFS+ file system and copy files from it. HFSExplorer unfortunately requires Java, but it’s the only free application we know of that allows you to read HFS+ file systems on Windows.

RELATED:How to Restore Files From a Time Machine Backup on Windows

If you’d just like to stop using Time Machine and use the drive with a Windows PC, you can reformat the drive with the NTFS or FAT32 file systems using the Windows Disk Management tool.

Time Machine isn’t a cross-platform backup solution, but it is very powerful. If you’re a Mac user, you should be using it.

Mac Time Machine Manual Backup Software

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