Backing Up Your Mac, iPhone and iPad: What You Need and What Each Backup Protects

Most people only think about backup after something goes wrong. A Mac stops starting, a phone is dropped or stolen, or a folder of photos turns out to be missing. A good backup plan is simply a way of making sure that day is an inconvenience instead of a disaster.

The tricky part is that Apple devices, iCloud, OneDrive and Dropbox all keep copies of your information, so it is easy to assume you are already covered. Sometimes you are. Often you are only partly covered. This guide explains what each kind of protection does, so you can see what you have and what might be missing.

Sync, cloud storage and backup are different things

These three ideas get mixed up all the time, and the difference matters.

Syncing keeps the same files up to date on more than one device. If you change a document on your Mac, the change appears on your iPad. If you delete it, the deletion normally follows. That is very convenient, but it also means a sync service can faithfully copy your mistake everywhere.

Cloud storage gives you online space for your files, so you can reach them from different devices and share them with other people. iCloud Drive, OneDrive and Dropbox are all used this way. They usually keep deleted files for a limited time, which is helpful, but it is not the same as a full backup.

A backup is a separate copy that you can go back to when the original is lost, damaged or changed by mistake. The important word is separate. A backup should still be there if the Mac fails, the phone is lost or the files are deleted.

Protecting your Mac

For most people, Time Machine is the best place to start. It is built into every Mac and, once it is set up, it runs by itself in the background. Time Machine backs up your files, including apps, music, photos, email and documents. It keeps hourly backups for the past 24 hours, daily backups for the past month and weekly backups for the months before that, until the backup disk fills up and the oldest backups are removed.

The backup can go to an external drive plugged into your Mac, to another Mac on your network, or to a network storage device (a NAS) that supports Time Machine. Use a backup drive with at least twice the storage of your Mac, so a Mac with 1TB of storage is better paired with a 2TB drive.

An external drive only protects you while it is connected. A desktop Mac can leave it plugged in all the time, but a laptop owner needs to connect the drive regularly or the backups will quietly fall behind.

We explain the choices, and how to set it up, in Backing Up Your Mac at Home: From Time Machine to NAS. If you are replacing a Mac, Setting Up a New Mac from Your Backup shows how to bring everything across.

Protecting your iPhone and iPad

An iPhone or iPad can be backed up in two ways, and they work differently.

iCloud Backup runs on its own once it is switched on and keeps a copy of your device in iCloud. It stores the information on your device that is not already syncing to iCloud. If you use iCloud Photos, Notes or iCloud Drive, that information is kept up to date by syncing instead of being copied into the backup again. The backup covers things such as your device settings, Home Screen layout and app data.

This is the simplest option for most people, but it needs enough iCloud storage. If a backup will not finish, check the size of the next backup, delete information you do not need, or move to a larger iCloud+ plan.

The second way is to back up to a Mac using Finder. It is a copy you can use if your device is ever replaced, lost or damaged. If you want to include Health and Activity data, you need to choose Encrypt local backup and set a password. You cannot recover that backup without the password, so keep it somewhere safe.

Many families use iCloud Backup every day and make a Mac backup before a repair, a replacement or a big update. The Mac that holds that backup should be protected by Time Machine as well, or the backup still exists in only one place. The full comparison is in How to Back Up an iPhone or iPad.

Where iCloud, OneDrive and Dropbox fit

Cloud services are very good at keeping your files available. They each protect slightly different things.

iCloud Drive keeps your files up to date across your devices. Apple says recently deleted iCloud Drive files can be recovered for 30 days, but files you remove permanently cannot be recovered.

OneDrive works in a similar way. Microsoft says Microsoft 365 subscribers can restore their whole OneDrive to an earlier time within the last 30 days. A file that has been permanently deleted from the OneDrive recycle bin can never be recovered. On a Mac, OneDrive can protect your Desktop and Documents folders only if you use the standalone app and allow it to read protected folders through Full Disk Access.

Dropbox is a little different because it offers two separate things. Ordinary Dropbox is cloud storage and syncing. Dropbox Backup is an extra feature that copies selected folders from your computer, and from an external drive, to the cloud. Cloud backup and cloud storage are not the same thing.

All of these are useful. None of them gives you a copy of your whole Mac that you can restore after a failure. They protect the files you put in them, within each provider’s own recovery rules.

Our guide to cloud storage and backup explains the difference in more detail, and What Does Your Cloud Service Actually Protect? goes through the three services one at a time.

Checking that your backups work

A backup you have never checked is more of a hope than a plan. Checking does not need to be a big job.

Look at the date of the latest Time Machine backup, which Apple shows in the Time Machine menu. Look at the date of the latest iCloud Backup for each iPhone and iPad. If a backup is not finishing, the cause is often simple, such as a full backup drive or not enough iCloud storage.

Every so often, restore one unimportant file or an old document, just to see how it works. It is much easier to learn the process on a calm day than during an emergency. It is also worth checking again after you replace a device, change a drive, or change an iCloud, Microsoft or Dropbox account.

Backup for a small business

Businesses have more to protect. Time Machine can still look after each Mac, but most businesses also keep important email and files in Microsoft 365. Microsoft 365 has useful recovery tools, but they are not the same as an independent backup kept in a separate system.

Our guide, Does Microsoft 365 Back Up Your Business Data?, explains the difference. If you would like help choosing and setting up the right protection, see our Backup & Recovery service.

A simple plan to start with

If you want the short version, here it is. Use Time Machine for each Mac. Switch on iCloud Backup for each iPhone and iPad, and make a Mac backup before a repair or replacement. Use iCloud, OneDrive or Dropbox for access and sharing, but do not rely on them as your only copy.

Keep a second copy of anything you could not replace, such as family photos and important records, somewhere away from your Mac and its backup drive. Then check now and then that everything is still running.

If you would like help with drives, Time Machine, iCloud or protecting business data, contact Your Mac Tech.