Time Machine fails to back up. Time Machine serves as a convenient tool for backing up your data. Time Machine Buddy organizes and displays the systems logs generated by Apple's Time Machine Backup feature found in Mac OS X Leopard. With this widget, you will be able to quickly tell what is happening behind the scenes for the backup in progress or any previous backups. ‎Read reviews, compare customer ratings, see screenshots, and learn more about iScheduleTimeMachine - The Time Machine Scheduler. Download iScheduleTimeMachine - The Time Machine Scheduler for macOS 10.9 or later and enjoy it on your Mac. Time Machine Buddy organizes and displays the systems logs generated by Apple's Time Machine Backup feature found in Mac OS X Leopard. With this widget, you will be able to quickly tell what is happening behind the scenes for the backup in progress or any previous backups. Time Machine is a great tool that automatically makes backups of your Mac onto an external drive. What's really great about it is that it's built into macOS itself, so every Mac comes with it automatically. Time Machine is a backup software application distributed as part of macOS, desktop operating system developed by Apple.The software is designed to work with AirPort Time Capsule, the Wi-Fi router with built-in hard disk, as well as other internal and external disk drives.

Intro

If you own a computer or mobile device, there’s one thing you’ve probably heard time and time again, back up your data.

When your critical information is stored in only one medium, it is inherently vulnerable. The device’s internal storage, either a hard drive or solid state drive, could fail, complications could occur during an update or other system event, the device could get lost or stolen, or a flood or fire could break out at the device’s location.

For this reason, it is advisable to always back up your data. On an iOS device, you probably back up your data in iCloud. However, on the Mac, iCloud backup is not available. Thus in this guide, I will be discussing how to back up your Mac with Time Machine, a backup utility built in to macOS.

Of course, like all backup techniques, it is not perfect, so it is generally advised to also have your data in another place, such as a cloud service. For example, you could back up your Mac’s entire disk with Time Machine and additionally store your documents in iCloud Drive and music in iCloud Music Library. This particular setup offers the dual advantage of having your content synced across multiple devices and having it stored in multiple locations.

What is Time Machine

Time Machine is a backup utility built into macOS that allows you to create a backup of all your data on external storage that is updated every hour. If at any time you lose a file or something catastrophic happens to your Mac, you can, “Go back in time,” to retrieve the data. Likewise if you get a new Mac, the macOS Setup Assistant gives you the option to restore from a Time Machine backup, placing your data where you’d expect.

To use Time Machine, you’ll need external storage that is bigger than your Mac’s internal storage, as backups are made continuously over time.

When the external disk is full, the oldest backup will be deleted.

Storage media, such as an external hard drive or flash drive, can either be directly connected to a computer or over a network. In this guide, I will refer to this media broadly as the disk.

Direct storage

Direct storage, as the name suggests, connects to your Mac directly via USB or Thunderbolt. External hard drives and flash drives are readily available from various retailers, and usually are reasonably priced.

When purchasing storage, I would recommend getting something that is at least twice the size of your Mac’s internal storage. For example, if your Mac has 512 gigabytes of internal storage, you should get a 1 terabyte, 1,024 Gigabytes, external disk.

In my particular use case, I keep my MacBook Air connected to my external hard drive whenever it is on my desk, so it can perform hourly backups without interruption.

Network storage

If you don’t want to connect a disk directly to your Mac, you can connect one to your network. At one point, Apple soled a device called a Time Capsule, which was a wireless router and backup hard drive in one. This product has been officially discontinued, but can still be bought from Amazon and other third-party retailers, and will be supported by Apple until 2023.

Another common network storage approach is to connect an external disk to the USB port on a wireless router, although specific network configurations can vary greatly. An advantage to this method is that any time you’re on that network, your Mac will backup automatically, eliminating the need to carry around an accessory or have one of your Mac’s ports constantly in use.

However, I would not recommend using network storage, as it can be significantly slower and less reliable than direct storage.

Setting up Time Machine

If you’re connecting a disk directly to your Mac, if it is new, you should be able to just connect it and a dialog will appear asking if you want to use it for Time Machine backups. In this dialog, you are given the option to encrypt the disk for additional security, for which you can set a password but have your Mac remember it in your keychain. This way, you don’t need to enter the password when you connect the disk or restart your Mac, but anyone else would need to if they were connecting the disk to theirs.

Important: if you choose to encrypt your disk, it is critical that you remember the password or keep it in a safe place. If you forget the password to an encrypted disk, the data will be lost forever.

If the dialog doesn’t show up, there may be other files on the disk, which you should erase before using it for backups. Once you do that, open System Preferences > Time Machine and click select backup disk. Select your disk in the resulting dialog. This dialog also gives you the option to set up Time Machine for network storage.

Once the disk has been selected, Time Machine will make an initial backup. This may take a while, although you can use your computer while this is happening. The speed of future backups depends on how much has changed since the last backup.

While you’re in Time Machine preferences, I would recommend selecting the, “Show Time Machine in menu bar,” checkbox. This gives you the option to enter Time Machine from anywhere.

Note: Time Machine is not cloning software, meaning you cannot boot your Mac directly from a Time Machine backup. If you want to make a backup that you can start up from immediately, use something like SuperDuper.

Restoring a lost file

Note: if you prefer an audio demonstration, there is an AppleVis podcast that demonstrates this process.

It’s happened to all of us at some point, you’re looking for a file that’s just not there. You know it was there at some point, but may have been accidentally deleted. Use Time Machine to go back in time to retrieve the file.

To do this, follow these steps.

1. Navigate to the folder where the file was located. If you don’t know, press Command Option Space in the Finder to open the full search window and search for the file there.
2. Enter Time Machine either through the menu bar or with Spotlight or Siri. As Time Machine starts, Voiceover will play a swishing sound several times, after which you will be focused in the folder in the current time.
3. Access the window chooser by pressing VO F2, and select, “Time Machine controls,” from the menu. If you have a Mac with a Touch Bar, access this menu by pressing VO Function two.
4. Either with the next and previous buttons or the timeline slider, navigate to the time you last had the file.

5. Navigate back to the folder via the window chooser and brows it in the normal way to locate the file. Tip: when you find the file, you can press space to open Quick Look to preview it, making sure it’s the one you want.

6. Select, “Restore,” from the contextual menu, accessed by pressing VO Shift M. Alternatively, click the restore button in the Time Machine controls window.

If the folder where the file was located still exists in the present, the file will be restored and Voiceover will announce, “Time Machine dismissed.” If the folder no-longer exists, you’ll be asked to choose a new location via the standard open and save dialog.

Restoring your whole computer

In some cases, such as an update going wrong or corruption of data, you may need to restore your computer to the state it was before the problem occurred.

Note: this method is not intended for use if you’ve replaced your Mac or internal storage medium. In that case, use the macOS Setup assistant instead.

To restore your Mac to a previous state, start up while holding down Command R and turn Voiceover on. Note: for this to work, you'll need either a built-in keyboard or a hardwired USB keyboard connected to your Mac.

In the macOS Utilities window, choose, “Restore from Time Machine backup,” from the table and click continue. Open all apps on mac. You will then be prompted to select your backup disk, as well as the precise backup from the timeline slider.

Note: in macOS Recovery, the only voice available is Fred.

Conclusion

Due to its relative simplicity once you get the hang of it, Time Machine can be an integral part of your backup strategy. If you believe any of the information in this guide is inaccurate or if you want something clarified, sound off in the comments. More information is available in your Mac’s built in help, Apple's Time Machine overview page, and the AppleVis forum, to name just a few good sources.

Summary :

Want a program like Apple Time Machine for Windows 10/8/7 to set up an automatic and complete backup of your entire computer? Today, we will show you the best alternative to Time Machine for Windows – MiniTool ShadowMaker, as well as how to automatically back up files to an external hard drive with this freeware.

Why Need Time Machine Alternative for Windows

As you know, as a backup and disaster recovery tool, Apple Time Machine does a great job and it is built in Mac OS. And it can keep local snapshots as space permits, hourly backups for the past hours, daily backups for the past month and weekly backups for all previous months to an external hard drive or NAS.

In short, it always keeps an up-to-date copy of everything on your Mac including music, movies, digital photos, documents, etc. If you have a need, you can easily go back to the time point hours ago or days ago to recover anything.

It's a 'run-and-done' program: once started, you don't need to do anything else and your Mac is protected immediately and forever. So excellent it is!

Unfortunately, Time Machine is only available for Apple’s macOS computers. For users who are running Windows 10/8/7, the software like Time Machine is quite necessary to keep PC safe.

Is there a Windows 'equivalent' to Time Machine on Mac OS? What is the best alternative to Apple's Time Machine, but for Windows? Now, you can get the answers from the following part.

Time Machine Alternative for Windows

When searching for “Time Machine for Windows Reddit”, you will find many Reddit users have a need for Time Machine Windows equivalent since they would like to have periodic backups of their OS and important files to an external location.

In this forum, someone recommends using Windows built-in tool like Backup and Restore, or third-party automatic backup software as the alternative to Time Machine for Windows 10/8/7. Today, we will show you these utilities to create similar Time Machine backup for Windows.

The Best Alternative to Time Machine for Windows: MiniTool ShadowMaker

To know whether the software is excellent, you can check if some highlighted features are embedded with this program. Here, MiniTool ShadowMaker, powerful and free backup software, should be taken into account.

This is because it contains almost all outstanding features in Time Machine, meanwhile, some features that Time Machine doesn’t contain can be found in MiniTool ShadowMaker. Let’s see some of its advanced features.

Time Machine Editor App

For instance, this backup software for Windows 10/8/7 enables you to run an automatic backup plan to keep your files, the entire disk, partitions and Windows operating system under protection. At the same time, incremental and differential backups are supported.

Need automatic backup software to automatically back up files or operating system in Windows 10/8/7? MiniTool ShadowMaker is a good option.

Besides, MiniTool ShadowMaker can make a hard drive clone easily, which is an effective way to upgrade your hard drive and transfer everything from an old disk to a new hard disk. In addition, it allows you to sync files to other locations for backup.

Moreover, it offers a complete system restore in a quick way from hardware failure, system crash, virus, and more.

Even the system doesn't need to be the same Windows version. Even if your old computer is Windows 7, and your new computer is Windows 10, MiniTool ShadowMaker will be useful to recover it, without any question. This requires its Universal Restore feature.

Now, you can free download this Time Machine alternative for Windows 10/8/7 and enjoy all these features to protect your PC. Also, you can choose to upgrade to Pro Edition for backup all the time.

How to Create Similar Time Machine Backup for Windows 10/8/7

How To Use Mac Time Machine

After knowing so many functions of this Time Machine Windows equivalent, you may want to know how to automatically backup files to an external hard drive, as Time Machine does. Just follow these steps:

Step 1: Run MiniTool ShadowMaker on your computer, click Keep Trial to use the trial edition, and then you can click the first Connect button (in the right side) to start a local backup.

What Is The Time Machine App On Mac

Step 2: In the Backup interface, you can see this alternative to Time Machine for Windows will back up the Windows operating system by default since all system partitions are selected as the backup source. Of course, you can choose the entire disk to back up.

If you want to back up your important files like Time Machine, please go to Source > Foldersand Files to choose needed files for backup.

Step 3: As for Time Machine, it allows you to back up data to an external hard drive or network attached storage (NAS). Here, this Time Machine for Windows alternative enables you to save the backup to an external drive, NAS, USB flash drive, etc. Just choose a storage path to continue.

Step 4: How to automatically back up your data or system? Returning to the Backup page, you can view the feature Schedule, allowing you to automate the backup process at a specific time point.

As you know, Time Machine can do Hourly backup, Daily backup, as well as Weekly backup and all backups, run automatically, which is quite helpful for you if you are busy with other stuff or just has a bad memory.

When turning the Schedule feature on, you can see this Time Machine equivalent for Windows 10/8/7 offers you four setting options (more powerful): Daily, Weekly, Monthly, and On Event, also enabling you to create automatic backups, as Time Machine does.

Step 5: Finally, you can go back to the Backup tab and click Back up Now to start a full backup in the Manage page. At the specific time point, this software will run automatic backups to keep your PC safe.

In addition, you can automatically back up files or folders by using the Edit Schedule feature in the Manage page after a full backup is completed.

The Alternative to Time Machine for Windows: Backup and Restore

In Windows, there is a utility called Backup and Restore, which is recommended as an alternative to Apple Time Machine for Windows 10/8/7. This tool can let you back up the Windows operating system & the files on your disk automatically and restore the system & files in case of computer accidents.

Similarly, this program can help you to free up disk space by changing how Windows retains older system images or deleting file backups.

Now, let’s see how to automatically back up files to an external hard drive. Take Windows 10 as an example.

Step 1: Navigate to Settings > Update & Security > Backup > Go to Backup and Restore (Windows 7).

Step 2: Click the Set up backup button in the right side to start file backup or system backup.

Step 3: Select the path where you want to save your backup. Here, this alternative to Time Machine for Windows allows you to back up files to a USB flash drive, external hard drive or network.

Step 4: Select a backup option: Let Windows choose (recommended) or Let me choose. Here, we check the second one.

Step 5: Then, you can select the check box of the items that you want to include in the backup. Here, you can also include a system image.

What do I need to back up my computer? What files should I back up? Now, get the answers to these two questions in this post.

Step 6: Then, review your backup settings. To automatically back up files, you can click Change schedule to modify the default schedule settings. Here, Backup and Restore can help you to back up files or system daily, weekly or monthly, which is similar to Time Machine.

Step 7: Finally, click Save settings and run backup.

Further Reading: File History Isn’t a Good Alternative to Time Machine for Windows 10/8

In addition, some users recommend File History to be an alternative to Time Machine for Windows 10/8. As you know, File History is built in Windows 10 and 8 operating systems, enabling you to automatically back up your files to an external hard drive.

But in the Reddit forum, one user said that this tool isn’t like Apple Time Machine that has all of these properties: full system recovery; full history of all your documents, emails, etc; handling multiple drivers gracefully; integrated with other apps like Mail, so an individual mail can be restored even it is stored in a strange format.

File History only covers some of those functionalities. It cannot handle multiple backup drives well and you can only have one backup drive at a time. Switching to another drive is a troublesome thing.

By default, this free tool will only help you to back up data in the user account folder (C:Usersaccountname), including the Desktop, Pictures, Downloads, Documents, Music, Videos folder, and so on. Some folders on other locations cannot be backed up.

Thus it can be seen that Windows File History cannot be the Time Machine equivalent for Windows.

Want to create automatic file backups in Windows 10? This post shows you how to automatically back up files to an external hard drive with ease. Best mac cleaner app 2014.

The End

Right now, the alternatives to Time Machine for Windows has been told to you and MiniTool ShadowMaker is the best Time Machine alternative for Windows 10/8/7. If you are still looking for an equivalent to Time Machine but for Windows OS, just get this tool and follow the above steps to back up files to an external hard drive.

On the other hand, if you have encountered an issue when creating automatic backups for system and files with our software, please let us know. Or if you have any suggestion, also tell us. Sending an email to [email protected] or leaving a comment below is available.