OS X Mountain Lion Portable Genius

Running a Backup

As mentioned, the entire backup process is handled behind the scenes, but that doesn’t mean you can’t check out what’s going on, or even stop and restart a backup that’s already in the works. Open the Time Machine preferences pane to see the progress of a backup procedure.

Performing a manual backup

You don’t have to wait for Time Machine to get around to backing up your system. In fact, you can start the process right now if you want. Follow these steps:

1. Choose Apple menu→System Preferences and click the Time Machine icon.

2. Select the Show Time Machine status in menu bar check box.

When you manually select files to back up, the preference files and other items necessary for Time Machine to completely restore your Mac should it fail may not be included in the process.

3. Be sure Time Machine is On. Toggle the On/Off switch, if necessary. If you have a volume already configured for Time Machine, you can skip this step.

4. Click the Time Machine icon in the menu bar.

5. Select Back Up Now, as shown in Figure 14.12.

Pausing or resuming a backup

You can stop and start a backup if you need to. To pause a backup, click the Time Machine icon in the menu bar (see Figure 14.12), and then select Stop Backing Up. To resume a backup process, click the Time Machine icon in the menu bar, and then select Back Up Now. Your backup should begin where it left off. ...