#Use external hard drive time machine for mac

Use the Add ( +) option to create a new partition and choose the Name, Format, and Size for each partition by selecting it in the diagram. Select your external drive from the sidebar and click the Partition button.If you can't find it, press Cmd + Space to search for Disk Utility using Spotlight.

Then go to Applications > Utilities and launch Disk Utility. Also, if your Time Machine is encrypted, my experience was that I needed to erase it and choose an unencrypted format in order to really regain full control of the disk.

Connect your external hard drive to your Mac. Click on the 'Time Machine' drive that is indented (the one underneath the one you selected on your screen).

#Use external hard drive time machine for mac

If you can spare more space, definitely do so. Start your Mac:- Go to Finder -> Application -> Utilities Double click for Disk Utility Select the external Hard Disk you wish to format at the left column Click on the Erase tab At the Volume Format select MS-DOS File System If you confirm to format your hard disk for mac and windows, Click on Erase button. However, you shouldn't go smaller than double the size of your Mac.įor example, if you have a 128GB MacBook, you should allocate at least 256GB for Time Machine backups. If you don't want years' worth of backups, you can reduce this size as you see fit. We recommend that you allow two to four times the size of your Mac's internal drive. When you partition your hard drive, you get to choose how much space to allocate for your Time Machine backups. You can make a Time Machine backup after partitioning the drive, but your backup history will restart from that point forward.

That means you may lose any existing Time Machine backups. Unfortunately, creating a new partition often erases your external drive.