Choose the one that's right for you and within your budget. There are various choices for restoring your Mac from an external backup in macOS Big Sur and macOS Ventura. It is very time-consuming and less efficient than restoring directly from an external hard drive you have sitting right on your desk. You can then select the files and folders you want to restore from your backup menu.īecause you either have to download files from the Internet or send them away for a physical copy, I only recommend using a cloud-based backup service to restore your Mac if you don't already have a local backup on hand. You can launch the remote app on your Mac or visit the company's website. Most programs will have a Restore files tool right in the user interface.

All of them will require that you download a backup from their remote servers, though - unless the service offers to send you a physical hard drive that you can use as a backup (Backblaze provides this feature). Select the disk that contains the Time Machine backup. Make sure this drive has enough spare disk space to store your backup files. Choose your external drive next to Restore From and your Mac’s hard drive next to Restore to. 1-Connect your external hard drive to your Mac (yes you need an external hard disk). Choose your hard drive click on the Restore tab on top of the Disk Utility window. Wait until your Mac boots to the macOS utility screen. Click Continue again to confirm to restore from Time Machine. Turn on your Mac and hold Cmd + R to enter Recovery Mode. If you use a cloud-based backup service, like Backblaze or CrashPlan, you can download missing data to restore your Mac.Įach cloud-based backup service is different. You will reach Macs recovery mode window. How to back up your Mac to an online backup service (Image credit: Joseph Keller / iMore)

How to backup mac in recovery mode