Knowledge base

Time Machine: How to transfer backups from the current backup drive to a new backup drive

Posted in Apple Mac OS

Summary

If you want to switch to a different backup drive, use this article to learn how to transfer your existing Time Machine backups to the new backup drive, and then use it for regular Time Machine backups.

To have the existing Time Machine backups on the new backup drive, follow these steps:

  1. Connect the new backup drive to your Mac.
  2. Open Disk Utility (located in the Utilities folder).
  3. In Disk Utility, select the new drive's icon, then make sure it has a GUID partition and is formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
  4. If needed, reformat the drive as Mac OS