Creating Your Own Backup Plan


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Creating Your Own Backup Plan

With Backup, you can create your own backup plans by project, file type, or even by which files have been modified in the past week. This way, you can be sure you’ll always be able to get to your important data.

Even if the files you want to back up are scattered throughout your home folder, Backup makes it easy to keep track of them and back them up on a regular basis. In Mac OS X 10.4, Backup uses Spotlight, a powerful feature for finding anything stored on your Mac. And Backup makes it easy to define when, where, and how often to back up your important files.

Use Spotlight to create a personalized backup plan

If you’re using Backup with Tiger, use Spotlight to make sure you don’t miss a file. When choosing items to back up, click the Spotlight button to search of your home folder, your Mac, and any network volumes. When a list of matches appears, you can choose which files and folders to include in your backup plan. Using Spotlight to create a backup plan is a great way to back up files from a specific project.

Manually choose files to back up

If you know you want to back up a specific file or folder, click the Files & Folders button when choosing items to back up. Select a file or folder in the navigation field, and then select “Include this folder.” Once a folder is added to a backup plan, every file in that folder is backed up the next time the backup plan is run.

Drag files and folders into Backup to add them to a backup plan

You can drag files or folders from the Finder to the Backup Items list. This can be a time-saver if you already have a Finder window opened to the folder you want in your backup plan.

If your computer is in sleep mode or turned off when a backup is scheduled

Backup lets you schedule your backups at any time that’s convenient for you. If you ever miss a backup because your computer is in sleep mode, or turned off, Backup will launch the missed backup plan when you wake up or turn on your Mac.

No need to wait for the next scheduled backup

You don’t have to wait until the next scheduled backup to back up important files. You can start a backup manually from the main Backup window, by selecting a backup plan and then choosing Back Up Now from the Plan menu.

What are QuickPicks?

QuickPicks are groups of related files, such as email messages, documents created by a particular application, or preference files. QuickPicks make it easy to make sure you don’t miss any important files when creating a backup, no matter where you’ve saved them in on your Mac.

Create your own backup plan

From the Plan menu, choose New Plan. Select the Custom plan template, and click Choose Plan.

Type a name for your plan in the field at the top of the window, and then click the Select Items to Back Up (+) button.

In the sheet that appears, select the types of files to back up from the QuickPicks list, and then click Done.

Click the Add a Destination or Schedule (+) button, and then choose where to save the backup from the Destination pop-up menu.

If you’re backing up to a hard disk or network volume, choose a folder from the Folder pop-up menu.

If you want Backup 3 to automatically back up your files on a regular basis, make sure that “Automatically back up at the following times” is selected, and choose when and how often you want to back up from the menus.

When you’re done, click OK.

Click Back Up Now to start the backup for the first time, or close the window to wait for the next scheduled backup.

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