Can anyone tell me if something is wrong with my Mac?


Posted on Feb 22, 2022 1:13 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Feb 22, 2022 2:46 PM

everything looks pretty good.


But I am concerned about this:

Major Issues:

Anything that appears on this list needs immediate attention.

No Time Machine backup - Time Machine backup not found.

Stuck iCloud - This computer has a large number of pending iCloud transfers.


"On the cloud" is great for sharing photos, but is not a viable backup solution for everything you have. The stuff is not under your control, and is subject to sloppy handling, arbitrary changes in policy, theft, data loss, and bankruptcy of the company that holds it. It can easily take three days to restore it at ordinary Internet speeds.


If you do not have a recent local, disk-based backup, your computer is like a ticking Time bomb. You are only one disk failure away from losing EVERYTHING! Drives do not last forever. It is not a question of IF it will fail, only WHEN it will fail.


If you are using another direct-to-disk backup method that you prefer, and you currently have a recent disk-based backup, that is great. If not, you should consider using Built-in Time Machine. Take steps to acquire an external drive as soon as possible. If you buy one, a drive 2 to 3 times or larger than your boot drive is preferable for long term trouble-free operation. Do not pay extra for a drive that is fast.  (You can get by for a while with a "found" smaller drive if necessary, but it will eventually become annoying).


Attach your external drive and use

System preferences > Time machine ...


... to turn on Time Machine and specify what drive to store your Backups on.  It may ask to initialize the new drive, and that is as expected.


Time Machine may spend all afternoon making your first full backup. You can continue to do your regular work while it does this. The first Full Backup is by far the biggest backup. After that, it will work quietly and automatically in the background, without interrupting your regular work, and only save the incremental changes.


Time Machine's "claim to fame" is that it is the backup that gets done, because it does not ruin performance of the rest of the computer while doing its backup operations. You do not have to set aside a "Special Time" when you only do backups. When you need it, your Time machine Backup is much more likely to be there.


How to use Time Machine to Backup or Restore your Mac:

Back up your Mac with Time Machine - Apple Support


If you choose to connect your Time Machine backup drive only from time-to-time, try to do so at least every-other day, at minimum. Otherwise, it may take several hours of computation just to decide what needs to be backed up, before any files are transferred.


————

Leroydouglas also wrote a nice article about Boot Clones. This might be something to think about a little further down the line.


 How to create a boot clone

How to create a boot clone - Apple Community


5 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Feb 22, 2022 2:46 PM in response to MariaS14

everything looks pretty good.


But I am concerned about this:

Major Issues:

Anything that appears on this list needs immediate attention.

No Time Machine backup - Time Machine backup not found.

Stuck iCloud - This computer has a large number of pending iCloud transfers.


"On the cloud" is great for sharing photos, but is not a viable backup solution for everything you have. The stuff is not under your control, and is subject to sloppy handling, arbitrary changes in policy, theft, data loss, and bankruptcy of the company that holds it. It can easily take three days to restore it at ordinary Internet speeds.


If you do not have a recent local, disk-based backup, your computer is like a ticking Time bomb. You are only one disk failure away from losing EVERYTHING! Drives do not last forever. It is not a question of IF it will fail, only WHEN it will fail.


If you are using another direct-to-disk backup method that you prefer, and you currently have a recent disk-based backup, that is great. If not, you should consider using Built-in Time Machine. Take steps to acquire an external drive as soon as possible. If you buy one, a drive 2 to 3 times or larger than your boot drive is preferable for long term trouble-free operation. Do not pay extra for a drive that is fast.  (You can get by for a while with a "found" smaller drive if necessary, but it will eventually become annoying).


Attach your external drive and use

System preferences > Time machine ...


... to turn on Time Machine and specify what drive to store your Backups on.  It may ask to initialize the new drive, and that is as expected.


Time Machine may spend all afternoon making your first full backup. You can continue to do your regular work while it does this. The first Full Backup is by far the biggest backup. After that, it will work quietly and automatically in the background, without interrupting your regular work, and only save the incremental changes.


Time Machine's "claim to fame" is that it is the backup that gets done, because it does not ruin performance of the rest of the computer while doing its backup operations. You do not have to set aside a "Special Time" when you only do backups. When you need it, your Time machine Backup is much more likely to be there.


How to use Time Machine to Backup or Restore your Mac:

Back up your Mac with Time Machine - Apple Support


If you choose to connect your Time Machine backup drive only from time-to-time, try to do so at least every-other day, at minimum. Otherwise, it may take several hours of computation just to decide what needs to be backed up, before any files are transferred.


————

Leroydouglas also wrote a nice article about Boot Clones. This might be something to think about a little further down the line.


 How to create a boot clone

How to create a boot clone - Apple Community


Feb 22, 2022 3:13 PM in response to MariaS14

This article does a superficial explanation of managing your storage by storing files (semi-automatically ) on iCloud. When storage space runs short on your Mac, least-frequently-used files are purged, and when needed again later, are re-downloaded form iCloud (so there may be a delay in accessing them).


What it does NOT explain is that this is a tar-baby of a solution that is very difficult to walk away from, and less to you buying more and more iCloud Storage. Un-doing it completely requi=res that you have space for all your files locally, and item to send them back to your Mac..


Free up storage space on your Mac - Apple Support


.

Feb 22, 2022 3:04 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

The thing is that it automatically tries to upload things to iCloud and i didn't even want those things to be uploaded on the first place. And I upload everything to drive because the other times I have tried to set up the Time Machine it just says other airport time capsule so I don't know how to use it. Also, is there any way to download apps online? What I mean is that if I download an app from safari or google, it tells me that google could not search it for malware or something like that and then it just gives me the options to cancel or move to trash. Is there a solution? Other Macs can download the apps but mine no.

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Can anyone tell me if something is wrong with my Mac?

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