A client recently had his iPad stolen, but he was prepared because he had the Find My feature enabled and he was backing up his iPad to iCloud. Do you have these features enabled? These features are useful whether you get your iPad back or not. If you don’t get your iPad back then the … Read more
Do you use either CrashPlan or Backblaze to backup your personal data files on your Mac? Starting with macOS Mojave (aka macOS 10.14), Apple implemented tighter privacy restrictions. Consequently, you now need to explicitly grant permissions to CrashPlan and Backblaze so these applications can access all of your files and folders on your Mac. Here … Read more
Do you use Time Machine to backup your Mac? There’s an adage that goes if it’s worth backing up once, it’s worth backing up twice. Consequently, I backup my Mac to two different hard drives as well as backing up my data to the cloud using Backblaze. Storing backup data on two different hard drives … Read more
This week’s Tech Tip is a cautionary tale. Last week, I offered some guidance on how to prepare for a Genius Bar appointment and the importance of knowing that you have a current Time Machine backup of your Mac, before taking your Mac to the Genius Bar. Recently, I had two clients take their Macs to … Read more
Is it time to replace your iPhone? If you don’t live near an Apple Store, or just want to do this migration yourself, please follow the guidance I provide in How To Migrate To a New iPhone. If you are not comfortable doing it yourself and you live near an Apple Store then you could let … Read more
Do you use Time Machine to backup your Mac? Are you annoyed by messages from Time Machine indicating that it can’t backup to a hard drive that you no longer have? Here are instructions on how to remove a specific hard drive from Time Machine’s configuration. If your Mac is using macOS 12 Monterey or … Read more
Do you backup your iPhone to your Mac? I recommend that you manually backup your iPhone to your Mac, every few weeks, even if you already backup your iPhone automatically to iCloud. When you backup your iPhone to your Mac you have the choice to encrypt the backup or not. The advantage of encrypting your iPhone … Read more
Is your Mac’s internal storage nearly full? If so, you may have seen an error message indicating that your startup disk is nearly full. I typically use OmniDiskSweeper to free up storage space on a Mac. One of the easiest techniques I use to free up some storage space is to remove backups of iPhones … Read more
Do you want to delete a backup of your iPhone or iPad from iCloud? There are two reasons you might want to do this. Sometimes, if one is unable to successfully backup an iPhone or iPad to iCloud, it’s because the current backup is somehow gumming up the system. By removing the existing backup then … Read more
Do you want to replace your older iPhone with a new iPhone? Here are some general instructions for accomplishing this task. Please be aware that this article provides a general description of the process, but not precise, step-by-step instructions. I don’t provide these because there are a number of variations depending upon exactly which model … Read more
Are you prepared to handle the theft of your Mac? Unfortunately, I had to test my own disaster recovery procedures when my laptop was stolen this past week. In situations like this, I believe there are two priorities. First, is the data on the Mac inaccessible? Second, can one get up and running on another Mac with … Read more
If you use CrashPlan Home then you need to make a change. Code42, the company that makes CrashPlan sent out emails announcing that they are sunsetting their CrashPlan Home product and will focus on CrashPlan for Business. As of August 22, 2017 it’s no longer possible to renew or extend an existing CrashPlan for Home subscription. Additionally, … Read more
When you are away from home, you need to make sure your iPhone connects to wi-fi networks to ensure that it’s getting backed up. This tip assumes that you have automatic backups to iCloud enabled. If you need help turning on this feature or checking to see if it’s on, then please refer to my … Read more
Do you want to make sure that Time Machine backs up an external hard drive, USB flash drive or an SD card that is connected to your Mac? If so, here are instructions to make sure this happens. If your Mac is using macOS 12 Monterey or older, use the instructions listed in Section 1 … Read more
Is your iPhone or iPad configured to backup to Apple’s iCloud servers? If so, your iOS device should automatically get backed up daily. If your iOS device is displaying a message indicating that it has not backed up in a few weeks (or more), here are some basic items that you should review. Read another Tech Tip … Read more
Do you need to reconfigure Time Machine to use a new external hard drive? If you read my Tech Tips regularly then you’ll recall that I strongly recommend that everybody setup automatic and redundant systems to backup their Mac. If you use Time Machine to backup your Mac to an external hard drive then you will … Read more
Does Time Machine continually display a status message of Preparing Backup and, thus, it fails to ever complete its current backup of your Mac? If so, you might need to delete the InProgress backup file. These InProgress backup files are created as part of Time Machine performing a backup. However, if the backup fails or gets … Read more
The days of Mac users blithely using their computers and not worrying about security issues are gone. Over the past few years the amount of malware that targets Mac users has proliferated. (Malware is a portmanteau of malicious software.) Your best protection against malware is to have a good backup system in place and to be cautious about what files … Read more
CrashPlan is a backup application, made by Code42. I use it and recommend it to create off-site, cloud-based, backups. To backup to Code42’s servers, one needs a subsciption. Code42 used to offer both home and business plans, but they stopped selling home plans in August 2017. A Business subscription costs $10 per computer per month and provides unlimited … Read more
Clients often ask me how often they should backup their Mac. They also ask me which files they should backup. My answer is short and sweet. Everybody should backup all files on their Mac’s hard drive every day. Why? Because you never knows when disaster will strike and you’ll need to rely on a recent backup to … Read more