Straight answers about backing up a Mac. No sign-up, nothing gated, and every Terminal command you need is on the page.
Time Machine, Terminal, or an app. What each one does, what Time Machine will not do, and the verification step nearly everybody skips.
The whole sequence in order: macOS from Apple, your account, then your files. Plus the four things that go wrong, including the most common one.
How to check a backup can be restored: how to record what you wrote, check it later, and what silent corruption looks like from the outside.
Apple seals the system volume with a signature only Apple can produce. What that means for every backup tool, and what a real recovery looks like instead.
Two to three times the data on your Mac. A size table, why the disk fills up, and how to make a smaller one last.
It sizes the job by the whole disk, not by how full it is. What it is really measuring, the sparse bundle trap on a NAS, and four ways to fix it.
Three copies, two kinds of storage, one off-site. What each number is for, and the two mistakes that leave people with fewer copies than they think.
Syncing is not backing up, and the difference is the whole point. What Optimize Mac Storage does to your backup, and how to use that space properly.
Time Machine over SMB, rsync over SSH, or an ordinary shared folder. What each needs from the NAS, and why RAID is not a backup.
Keep the same folders on every computer, with earlier versions of every change, and approve each new computer yourself.
The Snap Store, the AppImage and the .deb, and which one suits your system.
FileVault, encrypted Time Machine, a disk image, or encrypting before the write. Which one protects what, and where the key should actually live.
rsyncThe flags that matter on macOS, the metadata plain -a throws away, versions with --link-dest, and how to run it on a schedule with launchd.
What the message means, why there is no repair tool, and how to get your files out of the backup before you accept the offer to start a new one.
Three ways off the phone and onto a disk you own, what each one really copies, and the second copy nearly everybody forgets to make.
Sync is not backup, and 30 days of version history is not an archive. How to put a real backup in the space you already pay for.
Streaming or mirroring, what Drive keeps and for how long, and why your Google Docs are not in the folder you just copied.
It is already end to end encrypted, so why encrypt a backup again before it goes there? The honest answer, and what to do about it.
The failure where nothing is broken and nothing errors: the backup simply stopped happening. How to check in one command, and how to make the absence be the alarm.
The closest competitor there is, compared honestly, including the four places Arq is the better answer and what both do that Time Machine cannot.
A plain copy you can open in Finder for one household price, against encrypted, checked copies kept wherever you choose, including where Carbon Copy Cloner is the better answer.
It is a tick box you can miss, and most Time Machine drives are not encrypted. How to find out in ten seconds, and what turning it on afterwards costs.
The four everybody thinks of, the six people forget, and the ones there is no point copying. With the paths, so you can point any tool at them.
Known Folder Move and Files On-Demand both look like backup and neither is. What OneDrive really keeps, and how to put a proper backup in the space.
A mirror copies this morning's encrypted files over last night's good ones, on schedule, without being asked. Why versions are the answer, and what no backup can do.
Files decay on disks that pass every test macOS can run. What causes it, why nothing tells you, and the one check that answers the question.
What five years of storage rent actually costs, which tools are a one-off payment, and the case where a subscription really is the better answer.
That phase is deciding what to copy. When the system's change log is unusable it compares every file instead, which is the difference between forty seconds and four hours. One command tells you which.
On a network share Time Machine writes one large disk image and backs up into that. Every error in this family is about the image, and erasing the drive is almost never the fix.
Hourly for a day, daily for a month, weekly until the disk fills, then the oldest go. There is no retention setting, and three other things also quietly remove history.
Backblaze keeps your Mac in its cloud for one yearly price. Where that is the better answer, and where copies you control and check are.
A suite of disk images, cloning and anti-malware on a subscription, against one job done on the Mac. Where each one fits.
Macrium images a whole Windows drive for one yearly price. Where that is the better answer, and where encrypted, checked copies are.
Free, built in, and now a legacy feature Windows 11 hides by default. What it backs up, what it misses, and where Copy Shelter fits.
Timeshift snapshots Linux system files and says plainly it is not a backup tool. Copy Shelter is the encrypted file backup it says you still need.
GNOME's own free backup tool, built on Restic, against the same idea with a read-back check and reach across every platform.
Google One is the storage behind Android's built-in backup. Copy Shelter adds an encrypted copy you control. Where each one fits.