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The Optimized Storage features of your Mac help you save storage space by storing your content in iCloud and making it available on demand:

• When storage space is needed, files, photos, movies, email attachments, and other files that you seldom use are stored in iCloud automatically.
• Each file stays right where you last saved it, and downloads when you open it.
• Files that you’ve used recently remain on your Mac, along with optimized versions of your photos.

The first backup may take a long time, but you can continue using your Mac while a backup is underway. Time Machine backs up only the files that changed since the previous backup, so future backups will be faster. To start a backup manually, choose Back Up Now from the Time Machine menu in the menu bar. Use the same menu to check the status of. Here below is a list of 5 free methods that answer the question “how to backup Mac files for free?” Their different characteristics are an advantage to applying the 3x2x1 rule. Disk Drill (Free) An image file is a bit-by-bit copy of a drive.

If you haven't yet upgraded to macOS Sierra or later, learn about other ways to free up storage space.

Find out how much storage is available on your Mac

Choose Apple menu  > About This Mac, then click Storage. Each segment of the bar is an estimate of the storage space used by a category of files. Move your pointer over each segment for more detail.

Click the Manage button to open the Storage Management window, pictured below.

Manage storage on your Mac

The Storage Management window offers recommendations for optimizing your storage. If some recommendations are already turned on, you will see fewer recommendations.

Store in iCloud

Click the Store in iCloud button, then choose from these options:

• Desktop and Documents. Store all files from these two locations in iCloud Drive. When storage space is needed, only the files you recently opened are kept on your Mac, so that you can easily work offline. Files stored only in iCloud show a download icon , which you can double-click to download the original file. Learn more about this feature.
  
• Photos. Store all original, full-resolution photos and videos in iCloud Photos. When storage space is needed, only space-saving (optimized) versions of photos are kept on your Mac. To download the original photo or video, just open it.
  
• Messages. Store all messages and attachments in iCloud. When storage space is needed, only the messages and attachments you recently opened are kept on your Mac. Learn more about Messages in iCloud.

Storing files in iCloud uses the storage space in your iCloud storage plan. If you reach or exceed your iCloud storage limit, you can either buy more iCloud storage or make more iCloud storage available. iCloud storage starts at 50GB for $0.99 (USD) a month, and you can purchase additional storage directly from your Apple device. Learn more about prices in your region.

Optimize Storage

Click the Optimize button to save space by automatically removing watched movies and TV shows. When storage space is needed, movies or TV shows that you purchased from Apple and already watched are removed from your Mac. Click the download icon next to a movie or TV show to download it again.

Your Mac will also save space by keeping only recent email attachments on this Mac when storage space is needed. You can manually download any attachments at any time by opening the email or attachment, or saving the attachment to your Mac.

Optimizing storage for movies, TV shows, and email attachments doesn't require iCloud storage space.

Empty Trash Automatically

Empty Trash Automatically permanently deletes files that have been in the Trash for more than 30 days.

Reduce Clutter

Reduce Clutter helps you identify large files and files you might no longer need. Click the Review Files button, then choose any of the file categories in the sidebar, such as Applications, Documents, Music Creation, or Trash.

You can delete the files in some categories directly from this window. Other categories show the total storage space used by the files in each app. You can then open the app and decide whether to delete files from within it.

Learn how to redownload apps, music, movies, TV shows, and books.

Where to find the settings for each feature

The button for each recommendation in the Storage Management window affects one or more settings in other apps. You can also control those settings directly within each app.

• If you're using macOS Catalina or later, choose Apple menu  > System Preferences, click Apple ID, then select iCloud in the sidebar: Store in iCloud turns on the Optimize Mac Storage setting on the right. To turn off iCloud Drive entirely, deselect iCloud Drive.
• If you're using macOS Mojave or earlier, choose Apple menu > System Preferences, click iCloud, then click Options next to iCloud Drive. Store in iCloud turns on the Desktop & Documents Folders and Optimize Mac Storage settings.
• In Photos, choose Photos > Preferences, then click iCloud. Store in iCloud selects iCloud Photos and Optimize Mac Storage.
• In Messages, choose Messages > Preferences, then click iMessage. Store in iCloud selects Enable Messages in iCloud.

• If you're using macOS Catalina or later, open the Apple TV app, choose TV > Preferences from the menu bar, then click Files. Optimize Storage selects “Automatically delete watched movies and TV shows.”
• In you're using macOS Mojave or earlier, open iTunes, choose iTunes > Preferences from the menu bar, then click Advanced. Optimize Storage selects “Automatically delete watched movies and TV shows.”
• In Mail, choose Mail > Preferences from the menu bar, then click Accounts. In the Account Information section on the right, Optimize Storage sets the Download Attachments menu to either Recent or None.

Empty Trash Automatically: From the Finder, choose Finder > Preferences, then click Advanced. Empty Trash Automatically selects “Remove items from the Trash after 30 days.”

Other ways that macOS helps automatically save space

With macOS Sierra or later, your Mac automatically takes these additional steps to save storage space:

• Detects duplicate downloads in Safari, keeping only the most recent version of the download
• Reminds you to delete used app installers
• Removes old fonts, languages, and dictionaries that aren't being used
• Clears caches, logs, and other unnecessary data when storage space is needed

How to free up storage space manually

Even without using the Optimized Storage features described in this article, you can take other steps to make more storage space available:

• Music, movies, and other media can use a lot of storage space. Learn how to delete music, movies, and TV shows from your device.
• Delete other files that you no longer need by moving them to the Trash, then emptying the Trash. The Downloads folder is good place to look for files that you might no longer need.
• Move files to an external storage device.
• Compress files.
• Delete unneeded email: In the Mail app, choose Mailbox > Erase Junk Mail. If you no longer need the email in your Trash mailbox, choose Mailbox > Erase Deleted Items.

Learn more

• The Storage pane of About This Mac is the best way to determine the amount of storage space available on your Mac. Disk Utility and other apps might show storage categories such as Not Mounted, VM, Recovery, Other Volumes, Other, Free, or Purgeable. Don't rely on these categories to understand how to free up storage space or how much storage space is available for your data.
• When you duplicate a file on an APFS-formatted volume, that file doesn't use additional storage space on the volume. Deleting a duplicate file frees up only the space required by any data you might have added to the duplicate. If you no longer need any copies of the file, you can recover all of the storage space by deleting both the duplicate and the original file.
• If you're using a pro app and Optimize Mac Storage, learn how to make sure that your projects are always on your Mac and able to access their files.

Summary :

Backup is very important for computer usage since your business data or personal data may be lost suddenly from a computer. Data loss is a common and eternal topic on the internet. Well, backup is the most direct and effective way to prevent data loss and avoid unnecessary problems caused by it. This page on MiniTool will show you how to backup Mac to external hard drive in 5 ways.

Backup, also called data backup, is actually a copy of computer data. It is saved elsewhere on computer or external device so that it can be used to restore the original data when they are missing or corrupted. Backup is a simple and the most effective way to prevent important data loss.

How to backup Mac to external hard drive is asked frequently when users have valuable data stored on Mac. Why backup to external hard drive, not internal hard drive? There are mainly 3 reasons:

• The backup should be made regularly and it will occupy much disk space.
• The internal hard drive, especially the old ones, can get full easily.
• It’s easier to access an external drive: the external drive can be accessed from any devices while you can’t access the internal drive if your Mac is crashed/dead.

Please read the following ways carefully to know how to backup Mac yourself (these ways work for how to backup MacBook to external hard drive, how to backup iMac to external hard drive, etc.).

How to Backup Mac (Using Time Machine)

Microsoft provides different ways to help Windows users backup computer to external hard drive: System Restore and File History. Likewise, Apple also offers a built-in tool to help people backup Mac to external drive: it's called Time Machine.

Back Up your Mac with Time Machine

How to backup a Mac: 4 steps.

Step 1: connect an external hard drive.

Please prepare an external disk with enough capacity and connect it to your Mac through USB, FireWire, or Thunderbolt.

Please don’t get anxious when your hard drive not showing up Mac; there are several solutions to get Mac to recognize an external hard drive.

Step 2: open Time Machine and select disk.

Free Backup Program

1. Click Apple menu -> select System Preferences -> click Time Machine.
2. Click on the Select Backup Disk button (it's also named Select Disk in some systems).
3. Select the external disk you connected as the backup disk from the list.
4. You can check Encrypt backups to secure your backup.
5. You can also click on the Options button to decide which data to backup.

Step 3: erase disk or stop backing up to the previous disk.

• If the disk you selected to back up data is not formatted by Time Machine, you should click Erase in the prompt window to confirm.
• If you have used another disk for backup before, you’ll be asked Do you want to stop backing up to the previous disk and use the new disk, or back up to both. Please make your choice.

Step 4: wait for the backing up process.

The backup process will be started and processed automatically, so you should just wait until it’s completed. After that, you can remove the external drive from your Mac.

How to Backup Mac to External Hard Drive without Time Machine (4 Ways)

What if you don’t want to backup Mac to external hard drive using Time Machine? luckily, you have many other choices.

Backup Mac to External Hard Drive Using Disk Utility

How to backup Mac to external hard drive using Disk Utility:

1. Connect the external hard drive to Mac.
2. Open Disk Utilities from Finder -> Applications.
3. Select the external disk.
4. Click Erase and confirm your action.
5. Confirm the Name, Format, and Scheme.
6. Click Erase and wait.
7. Click Done.
8. Open the external hard drive and create a new folder named Backup or anything else.
9. Navigate to the file/folder you want to backup, copy it manually.
10. Go to the Backup folder and paste the file/folder.

Backup Mac to iCloud

iCloud is a good choice to keep a backup of your data. It allows you to back up data on many different devices like Mac, iPhone or iPad. Then, you can access the backup data anywhere you want.

Free Backup Mac Computer

How can you backup your Mac to iCloud:

Some users would like to know how to backup Mac to iCloud, in addition to backing up Mac with Time Machine (the built-in backup software).

Backup Mac Using Cloud Storage Services

Online backup service is also a good choice for backing up your MacBook. How to back up MacBook? There are many choices for you.

• Dropbox
• OneDrive
• Google Drive
• Etc.

Free Mac Backup Software

You should just follow the on-screen instructions to finish backup.

Backup Mac with Third-party Backup Software

Free Backup Mac

There is a lot of third-party backup software designed for Mac. You should choose a professional one that won’t bring any damage to your system and disk.

Mac Os Backup Software

That's all about how to back up Mac on an external hard drive.