How to Use the Time Machine Preferences in Mac OS Mojave

Posted on 16th June 2023

Backup settings

The first thing you need to do is open the Time Machine preferences from the System Preferences app. To do this, click on the Apple icon in the top left corner of your screen and then click on System Preferences. Once you’re in the System Preferences app, click on Time Machine.

Once you’re in the Time Machine preferences, you’ll see a few different options that you can configure. The first option is “Backup Disk.” This is where you select the disk that you want to use for your Time Machine backups. Make sure that you select a disk that has enough space to store your backups. If you’re not sure how much space you need, you can click on the “Calculate Size” button and Time Machine will estimate the amount of space that you need.

The next option is “Back Up Automatically.” This is where you can enable or disable automatic backups. If you enable this option, Time Machine will automatically back up your Mac when it detects that your backup disk is connected. If you disable this option, you’ll need to manually start backups by clicking on the “Back Up Now” button.

The next option is “Show Time Machine in menu bar.” This is where you can enable or disable the Time Machine menu bar icon. If you enable this option, you’ll see a Time Machine icon in the menu bar. You can use this icon to manually start backups, access your Time Machine preferences, or access your Time Machine backups.

The next option is “New hard drives will be used for backups.” This is where you can enable or disable the automatic addition of new hard drives to your Time Machine backups. If you enable this option, any new hard drives that you connect to your Mac will be automatically added to your Time Machine backups. If you disable this option, you’ll need to manually add new hard drives to your backups by clicking on the “Add or Remove Backup Disk” button.

The next option is “Delete old backups.” This is where you can configure how often Time Machine will delete old backups. The options are “Every day,” “Every week,” “Every month,” or “Never.” If you choose “Every day,” “Every week,” or “Every month,” you’ll also need to choose how many days, weeks, or months to keep backups. For example, if you choose “Every week” and “4 weeks,” Time Machine will delete backups that are more than 4 weeks old. If you choose “Never,” Time Machine will never delete any of your backups.

The next option is “Advanced options.” This is where you can configure some advanced options for Time Machine. The first option is “Exclude these items from backups.” This is where you can add items to be excluded from your Time Machine backups. The second option is “Hard links.” This is where you can enable or disable hard links. Hard links allow you to have multiple copies of the same file in your backups. For example, if you have a file named “File A” in your Documents folder and you also have a file named “File A” in your Downloads folder, Time Machine will only store one copy of the file. However, if you enable hard links, Time Machine will store two copies of the file. One copy will be stored in the Documents folder and the other copy will be stored in the Downloads folder. The third option is “Sparse bundles.” This is where you can enable or disable sparse bundles. Sparse bundles are used to save space by only storing the changes made to a file, rather than the entire file. For example, if you have a 100 MB file and you only change 1 MB of the file, Time Machine will only store the 1 MB of changes. The fourth and final option is “Backup frequency.” This is where you can choose how often Time Machine should back up your files. The options are “Hourly,” “Daily,” “Weekly,” and “Monthly.”

Scheduling

The next thing you need to do is configure the scheduling options for Time Machine. The first option is “Start backups.” This is where you choose when you want Time Machine to start backing up your files. The options are “Now,” “Every day,” “Every week,” “Every month,” or “Whenever you connect your backup disk.”

The next option is “Back up after.” This is where you choose how often you want Time Machine to back up your files. The options are “1 hour,” “2 hours,” “3 hours,” “4 hours,” “5 hours,” “6 hours,” “7 hours,” “8 hours,” “9 hours,” “10 hours,” “11 hours,” or “12 hours.”

The next option is “Stop backups.” This is where you choose when you want Time Machine to stop backing up your files. The options are “Now,” “Every day,” “Every week,” “Every month,” or “Whenever you disconnect your backup disk.”

The next option is “Back up after.” This is where you choose how long you want Time Machine to back up your files. The options are “1 hour,” “2 hours,” “3 hours,” “4 hours,” “5 hours,” “6 hours,” “7 hours,” “8 hours,” “9 hours,” “10 hours,” “11 hours,” or “12 hours.”

The final option is “Back up while on battery power.” This is where you choose whether or not you want Time Machine to back up your files while your Mac is running on battery power. The options are “Yes,” “No,” or “Ask each time.”

Conclusion

That’s all you need to know about how to use the Time Machine preferences in Mac OS Mojave. If you have any questions, feel free to post them in the comments section below. Thanks for reading!

In the Time Machine Preferences window, you can select whether you want to back up to an external drive, a network drive, or both. You can also select the schedule for when Time Machine should back up your Mac. By default, Time Machine will back up your Mac every hour, but you can change this to daily, weekly, or monthly. You can also select the option to back up when your Mac first starts up, and you can choose to back up only when your Mac is connected to a power source.