i am using a mac book i bought in jan 09. how do i backup all my iphoto pics onto my external hard drive?
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
saving pics on external hard drive
- Thread starter heath82371
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Simply activate Time Machine in the System Preferences and select your external drive as backup drive. There is no step 2.
i don't know how to use time machine. i am totally new to having a Mac and can basically only surf the net and upload pics to iphoto. i want to be able to just 'copy and paste' my pics into my external hard drive (like you would if using a PC). i like to do it manually but haven't a clue how.....i have LOTS of pics of my newborn i need to backup....help!!!
And that's an excuse why? 😉
It's so simple:
(1) Get an external harddrive (it should be bigger than the drive you want to backup and it must be bigger than the data you want to backup).
(2) Launch the System Preferences and select Time Machine from the list.
(3) Select your external harddrive as backup drive and move the slider from Off to On.
There is nothing more that needs to be done, Time Machine does all the rest automatically.
Do not do it manually, because chances are, you'll forget to do it on a regular basis.
richard.mac
macrumors 603
Time Machine is excellent as it backs up your whole computer not just what you choose. so its automatic. but you need a big external hard drive bigger than your Mac's as OreoCookie said.
but if you want to do it manually just plug it in and drag the photos over!
it may not be in the format that Mac OS X can write to so if this is the case open Disk Utility (use Spotlight to search for it), select your external on the left (will have an orange icon), click the Erase tab and choose "Mac OS Extended" and then click Erase (WARNING this will format and erase everything on the drive).
but if you want to do it manually just plug it in and drag the photos over!
it may not be in the format that Mac OS X can write to so if this is the case open Disk Utility (use Spotlight to search for it), select your external on the left (will have an orange icon), click the Erase tab and choose "Mac OS Extended" and then click Erase (WARNING this will format and erase everything on the drive).
ok, so how do i open the pics? i mean i can access them to edit them in iphoto but how do i get a list of them (like on a PC) so i can copy and paste them? i have an external hard drive (sea gate) but cannot leave it plugged in all the time b/c i have a laptop so i don't think setting time machine to backup my stuff automatically would work? sorry i am soooo clueless....new baby=no time to learn how to operate new computer. thank you guys!
You can drag and drop them directly from your iPhoto window to the folder on your external harddrive.
Of course it would work. Obviously, it only makes hourly backups when your harddrive is connected.
It's even simplier.
1) Get external drive, plug it in.
2) When ask if you want to use drive as Time Machine, select Yes.
Done.