Time Machine and backups on macOS
Time Machine and backups on macOS
This article explains how Time Machine works on macOS, how to set it up, and how to manage snapshots — for users of macOS Monterey through Sonoma.
Requirements
- macOS Monterey 12 or newer (macOS 13 Ventura or newer is required for the `diskutil` snapshot commands) - An external USB drive, Thunderbolt drive, or network drive (NAS) with sufficient free space — at least twice the size of your internal storage - Administrator rights on the Mac - For network drives: a drive that supports Time Machine via SMB or AFP
Steps
1. Connect the backup drive to your Mac. Use a USB, Thunderbolt, or network drive. macOS detects the drive automatically and shows a dialog asking whether you want to use the drive as a Time Machine backup drive. Click Use as Backup Disk.
2. If the prompt does not appear, configure Time Machine manually. Open System Settings > General > Time Machine. Click Select Disk and choose the connected drive. For network drives, click Add Network Disk and select the share via SMB or AFP.
3. Wait until the first backup is complete. The first backup copies the entire contents of your Mac: apps, accounts, settings, music, photos, movies, and documents. Time Machine does not back up the macOS operating system itself. Depending on the amount of data and the speed of the drive, the first backup can take several hours.
4. Check the backup status. Click the Time Machine icon in the menu bar (or open System Settings > General > Time Machine). The status shows "Latest Backup" with a timestamp. If the menu bar does not show the icon, check Show Time Machine in Menu Bar in the settings.
5. Adjust the backup frequency (optional). In macOS Ventura 13 and newer, you can set the Backup Frequency option in System Settings > General > Time Machine to daily, weekly, or monthly. By default, Time Machine backs up every hour.
6. View local snapshots on the internal drive. Time Machine also creates local snapshots on the internal SSD. These are created every hour and retained for 24 hours, provided there is sufficient free space. Open Terminal and run:
diskutil apfs listSnapshots /
This shows all APFS snapshots of the main system volume, including the creation time.
7. Delete a local snapshot manually (optional). If you want to free up disk space, delete a specific snapshot:
diskutil apfs deleteSnapshot / -name <snapshotname>
Replace `
8. Restore a system to an earlier snapshot (optional). Use only in emergencies, for example before a failed system update:
diskutil apfs revertSnapshot / -name <snapshotname>
This restores the system volume to the state of the specified snapshot. The Mac must restart.
Verification
Check whether Time Machine works correctly:
tmutil latestbackup
This command shows the path and timestamp of the most recent backup. If it returns a path such as `/Volumes/Backup/Backups.backupdb/...`, Time Machine is working properly. For an overview of all backups:
tmutil listbackups
Frequently asked problems
1. "The backup could not be completed" — insufficient space on the backup drive. Time Machine automatically deletes the oldest backups when the drive becomes full. Check that the drive has at least twice the size of your internal storage. Manually delete old backups with:
tmutil delete /Volumes/Backup/Backups.backupdb/MacBook\ Pro/2024-01-15-083000
2. Local snapshots take up too much space on the internal drive. macOS automatically deletes older snapshots when the drive becomes full. You can delete snapshots manually with the command from step 7. Use `diskutil apfs listSnapshots /` to see which snapshots take up the most space.
3. Time Machine does not show a network drive as an option.
Make sure the network drive supports Time Machine via SMB. Open Finder > Go > Connect to Server and connect to `smb://
Time Machine remains one of the few backup solutions that runs automatically without configuration — but the snapshot commands give you the control that is missing by default.