[Top 2 Ways] How to Backup Mac to External Hard Drive Without Time Machine

How to backup Mac to external hard drive without Time Machine? You are coming to the right page if you want to know the answer. This article will share two ways to back up your Mac computer to an external hard drive without using Time Machine.

Why Do We Backup Mac to External Drive

Backing up a Mac computer is as important as backing up a Windows computer. After all, all of your crucial documents, images, and memories are on your Mac. You might lose everything if your Mac were to malfunction. An external hard drive is the ideal backup location for Mac backups. You may back up your Mac to an external hard drive for various reasons, including file security, space conservation, or privacy protection.

• File security. According to the 3-2-1 backup rule, keeping a file with at least two copies is always good practice. Who knows if the file will be erased on your Mac intentionally or accidentally or if macOS will crash?
• Space conservation. Your internal hard drive might soon become overloaded if you have many documents, pictures, and other data to store. You can prevent your internal drive from being overloaded by keeping some data on an external hard disk.
• Privacy protection. There must be some crucial files on your Mac when you plan to sell, donate, or give your Mac away. Therefore, you need to delete these files. But it would be best to back them up for later use.

Can We Backup Mac to External Drive Without Time Machine

Does Time Machine back up everything on your Mac? Undoubtedly, Time Machine is an excellent backup and recovery solution for all Mac devices. But it cannot back up system log files or apps, temporary files, and trash or iCloud contents. It can help you automatically back up data to external hard drives to avoid data loss. A case in point is that when you clean install macOS Ventura, you can back up your Mac using Time Machine.

So, here comes a question can we back up Mac to an external drive without Time Machine? This answer is yes. Without Time Machine, there are other ways to back up a Mac computer to an external drive. Keep reading!

Additional Guide: How to Prepare an External Drive for Mac Backup

Before backing up your Mac to an external disk, there are a few things to do. You should check the storage space of the external drive to ensure there is enough space for backups. And if the external drive hasn't been formatted, you need to format it using Disk Utility. The steps to format an external drive via Disk Utility are as follows:

Step 1. Plug in an external hard drive, and go to Applications > Utilities to open Disk Utility.

Step 2. Choose the external drive from the list, and click Erase.

Step 3. Choose a format form. Choose ExFat if you want the drive to access the files on a Windows computer. Then click Erase.

2 Ways to Back Up Mac to External Hard Drive

Here, two practical ways will be introduced to help you back up your Mac to an external hard drive. You can read the two methods carefully, then create a backup of your Mac computer and store the backup on the external drive. Let's see how they work.

Way 1. Using Professional Backup Software (3 Steps)

If you want to find a simple way to help you back up files on your Mac computer without Time Machine, you can turn to professional backup software for help. Under such circumstances, EaseUS Todo Backup for Mac, the best backup software for Mac, comes in handy.

EaseUS Todo Backup for Mac is a powerful backup software for Mac devices running any macOS operating system, including the latest macOS Ventura. It can help you back up your Mac without Time Machine and create backups in full, incremental, and differential modes. As a great alternative to Time Machine, EaseUS Todo Backup for Mac has much to offer. It also lets you clone a USB drive and create a disk image. Most importantly, you can back up your Mac computer to an external drive with three simple steps.

The following are the detailed steps to back up your Mac to external storage devices.

Step 1. Launch and run EaseUS Todo Backup for Mac.
Click the first Backup tab or simply click the + button in the bottom-left corner to create a backup project - name the backup project and click OK.

Step 2. Set up the backup destination where you want to store Mac files as backups, automatic backup frequency, etc and click OK.

Step 3. Add files and folders to the backup project.
Click File+ to selectively choose files and folders to add to the backup and click the blue start button to back up your Mac to another drive or external device.

Way 2. Manually Copying Files to External Drive

You can manually back up Mac files to an external hard drive without using Time Machine. Plug in the external disk to your Mac computer to get started and begin to back up your data. The following are the detailed steps:

Step 1. Click Finder > Preference and check the Hard disks under Show these items on the desktop.

Step 2. Open the external disk, then create a file folder and name it.

Step 3. Open the Mac disk, click the Users' file folder, choose all files you want to back up, and drag them to the file folder.

Step 4. Wait for the copying process to finish.

The Bottom Line

Knowing how to back up Mac to external hard drive without Time Machine is very important. This is because you can always retain data after some unfortunate scenarios. In short, you can back up your Mac to an external disk manually or using a third-party tool. Using EaseUS Todo Backup for Mac will be easier than manually copying files. Try EaseUS Todo Backup for Mac to back up your Mac to an external drive or other external storage devices if you're in a hurry.

FAQs

1. What is the best way to backup files on Mac?

Time Machine can back up images, movies, music, and documents. Once you set up Time Machine, it can automatically back up your Mac regularly. But Time Machine cannot back up everything on your Mac, such as iCloud content, temporary files, and system log files. Fortunately, you can use EaseUS Todo Backup for Mac, the best backup software for Mac, to back up data on your Mac.

2. Is it better to back up to Mac or iCloud?

Which is preferable, backing up to your Mac or iCloud? Using both is preferable. Having a local backup is considerably more effective; if you ever need to restore your device, doing so from your local backup will save you a ton of time.