If you plan to trade in or pass on your old Mac when you upgrade to a new one, there are pitfalls in ensuring you don’t lose any data, while ensuring your old Mac is completely wiped.
Time Machine
Browse log entries for a recent boot, examine the entries for Time Machine, and check for errors in another subsystem.
When Time Machine makes its backups to APFS storage, just what can and can’t you do? How can you prevent large temporary files from stealing space on storage?
Archiving is very different from backing up, from the storage media used to integrity checks. Here are pointers to help you preserve important documents.
APFS backup disks offer different possibilities for adding volumes for your own use, alongside the backup volume. How do you decide what’s best?
In macOS 12.4, it’s impossible to run First Aid on any container or APFS volume on a disk with a Time Machine APFS backup volume, except in Recovery.
Internal or external? Hard disk or SSD? USB or Thunderbolt? Cooled or compact? Branded or separates? An external boot disk? Do you have a return and refund option?
What’s the Update volume doing weeks after the last macOS update? What can I do if ejecting my Time Machine backup storage causes an improper ejection error?
M1 Macs don’t support SMART monitoring over USB-C, forcing us to choose between Full Security without SMART, or Reduced Security with SMART support.
Signs of an SSD going down may be confusing, but when random apps seem to freeze, be suspicious. Diagnosis and recovery are also covered.
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