How to Backup Your Laptop 101

Today we got an email from our tech guy about how to back up our laptops.  I decided I had to save this as everytime we are asked to do this, I always wonder if I've gotten everything I need and if I've done it correctly.  This will make a great reference point for future use.

How to backup your computer 101!!!

1.    Copy everything that is highlighted in blue over to and external backup source.!

a.    External back up source can be….Flash drive, External Hard Drive.

                                              i.     Just make sure you have enough space on the external backup device to be able to back everthing up.

2.    Secondly you need to back up your address book.

a.    This is simple open your address book in Applications

b.    Go to file -> Export -> Address Book Archive.

c.    Save it to your External backup source.

  

3.    Now we need to backup the Mail

a.    Go to your Hard Drive -> User -> Select User -> Library -> Mail, and copy the Mail folder to your external source of backup.

Now we need to back up your Favorites either Firefox or Safari.

4.    First lets do Firefox. (its easier!!!)

a.    Open Firefox, and go to bookmarks, from there organize bookmarks.

b.    From there there is a little star with a drop down key hit it and say backup

c.    Make sure you save it to your External Backup Source.

5.    Now lets do Safari…

1.  Making sure the Safari browser is closed, open the hard drive icon from the desktop screen (or finder window). Click the Users folder.

2.   From the users folder, click on the folder with your Username. This can often be accessed from the left hand side of the finder window as well.

3.  Once you're in the user name folder, click on the Library folder. This is where critical information for many applications specific to your username are stored. If you need to find certain preference or data files from another application in the future, this is the place to look.

4.  We want the history and/or bookmarked favorites from Safari, so once you're n the Library folder click on the Safari folder.

5.    Inside this folder are both the Bookmarks.plist and History.plist files. These hold all the data for their respective functions. From here you can open Time Machine to restore older versions of these files, copy the files to another location for safe keeping, or even move the files to the same folder on another machine to synchronize your favorite bookmarks and history files.