Q&A for How to Back Up a Mac Without Time Machine

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How do I back up my Mac immediately?

Chiara Corsaro
Phone & Computer Repair Technician
Chiara Corsaro is the General Manager and Apple Certified Mac & iOS Technician for macVolks, Inc., an Apple Authorized Service Provider located in the San Francisco Bay Area. macVolks, Inc. was founded in 1990, is accredited by the Better Business Bureau (BBB) with an A+ rating, and is part of the Apple Consultants Network (ACN).

Chiara Corsaro

Phone & Computer Repair Technician

Expert Answer

Backing up with Time Machine is relatively simple and only requires that you have an external hard drive—you don't need a Time Capsule (or AirPort) hard drive from Apple to use Time Machine.

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Question

Will this remove the data that is already on the hard drive?

Community Answer

None of the above will remove the data that is already on the Mac's main, internal hard drive. However, Step 3 of Part 1 will remove the data that is already on the external hard drive.

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Question

Can I use an external HDD with ExFat formatting?

Community Answer

Yes, you can. This is helpful if you want to use the same HDD with Mac and Windows both.

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Question

I did this and it erased all the other preexisting files on my External hard drive. What should I do?

Jacob Fitzgerald

Community Answer

You have to format the drive to a type that works with Mac well (but that will delete files, so back those up on another drive), and then partition the drive.

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I'm planning on downgrading from Catalina. If I make a backup like this, will it keep the OS as well?

Community Answer

Yes, it will. I's an image of your existing HD. To downgrade from Catalina, you'll need to backup all your files, then clean install the older version of MacOS and copy your data back to the mac. All your apps will need to be reinstalled as well, so don't lose the validation keys, etc.

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