Hard drives.  Solid State Disks.  USB sticks.  SD cards.  They all fail eventually.  Ask me how I know…

We all generate lots of digital data these days, so it’s really important to make sure you keep regular backups of your computer.  You can even make this your New Year’s resolution if you think it will help.

Luckily for Apple Mac users, keeping automated, regular backups is insanely easy.

OS X has a built-in feature called Time Machine.  You’ll notice the app in your Applications folder, and in the System Preferences app (which is where we set it up).

All you need to make use of Time Machine is an external hard drive.  If you’re in the market for a new drive, look for USB 3 connectivity and preferable at least 1TB capacity.

Please be aware that the next phase of this tutorial involves erasing your new or re-purposed external hard drive.  All data on the drive you will be using for your backup will be deleted during preparation for use with Time Machine.

Once you have your drive, you’ll need to format it to the Mac’s default file system.  Open Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility.app.  You’ll see a list of attached drives in the left hand column.  Click on your external drive (listed under “External”), then select the “Erase” button at the top of the window.  In the name field, enter the name you would like to give the drive.  This could be something like Backup or Time Machine – anything you like.  Under “Format”, select OS X Extended (Journaled) and under “Scheme” select GUID Partition Map.  Now click “Erase” to format the disk.

This usually takes a few seconds, but will vary depending on the capacity of your drive.  Once the format has completed, it’s time to configure Time Machine!

Open Applications > System Preferences.app

Select Time Machine.  This will open the Time Machine preference panel.  You’ll see a large Off / On switch on the left.  Make sure this is On.  On the right hand side of the panel, select “Add or Remove Backup Disk”.  This will open a dialog box with a list of connected devices.  Select your backup disk and click “Use Disk”.

That’s it!  Time Machine will now make automatic backups of your Mac, taking periodic snapshots of the whole filesystem.  This means that if you accidentally delete a file, you can get it back by selecting Time Machine in your menu bar (the clock-like logo at the top-right of your screen) and choosing “Enter Time Machine”.  Here, you’ll be able to fly back in time and see what your Mac looked like at given points in time.  You can roll back through each snapshot to find your accidentally deleted file, then select it and click on “Restore”.

Obviously your backup drive will need to be attached in order to make backups, so keep this in mind if you’re a laptop user.  Also be sure to eject the drive before removal by clicking the eject arrow in the Finder sidebar.

If you buy a new Mac, you can also use your Time Machine drive to copy over all your files and apps without having to manually re-install everything.

In spite of Time Machine being extremely easy and robust, many Mac users still don’t take advantage of it.  It has saved me countless hours in lost productivity over the years.

Don’t wait until it’s too late!