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IT Support & Hardware · Foundational

Time Machine

macOS's built-in backup utility that keeps hourly, daily, and weekly snapshots on an external or network drive.

Definition

Time Machine keeps hourly backups for 24 hours, daily for a month, and weekly until the disk is full, then removes the oldest. It can restore individual files or the entire system through Migration Assistant or macOS Recovery. Backups can be encrypted.

Example

Restore a deleted folder by opening Time Machine and browsing to yesterday's snapshot.

Exam tip

Time Machine = macOS backup; know its hourly/daily/weekly retention.

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