You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!
When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.
When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.
I've been doing TM backups for years while on battery only. However, now even though I've been continuing to do this, I occasionally get messages saying for example "No backups in 10 days. Connect to a power outlet while your backup disk is available." Is there a problem with backing up while on battery power?
MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 10.14
My 16-inch MBP M1 Pro (32/1TB) with macOS 12.1 backs up to Time Machine every approximate hour while on battery or charger. Even on a fully recharged battery, I can perform browsing and editor activities for six hours with only a 25 - 30% battery drain.
The TM drive is a 1TB USB-C Crucial X8 SSD (1050MB/s read) drive. Should have purchased a 2TB version and that is about to happen because Crucial has now taken $60 off the list price for the 2TB version.
Running out of power during a backup operation could ruin your Time Machine Backup SET -- the collection of organized files that time machine keeps. If the computer is actively writing files when this happens, it could ruin the integrity of your current files as well.
If you are in one place when you connect your drive to do backups, it is prudent to plug it in as well.
Hi rhirsch,
You shouldn't need to have your Mac plugged in to back up your Mac with Time Machine.
If you want your Mac to automatically back up while on battery power, make sure that this option is enabled, in System Preferences -> Time Machine -> Options -> Back up while on battery power. Otherwise, your Mac will only back up when it is plugged in to power, or when you explicitly tell it to back up.
No, but it's a very good idea to do so. Having never had X problem happen, does not mean you won't ever have it happen. That's why we buy insurance policies such as AppleCare, a hedge against what might happen.
rhirsch wrote:
Could you please explain why it's a good idea even if there is plenty of time left on the battery charge?
Because you do not want the possibility of losing data due to time machine interruption because of loss of power. My data is important to me and if there is any remote possibility that I may lose that data I take every precaution to prevent that loss or corruption. You can if you prefer, continue using only battery power. It is your data and system.,
steve359 wrote:
Extra power draw through the USB-C port, probably. The same way you should have your device plugged into power for upgrades ... shutdowns mid-operation are bad.
If the backup drive is formatted as Journaled HFS+, then yes - you'll probably need DiskWarrior in order to recover from something like that.
That said, if the backup drive is formatted as APFS (and the Mac is running macOS Big Sur and later), the system is much safer. All of the backups are stored as APFS snapshots, and if something goes wrong, the drive can be quickly reverted to the last snapshot to undo the corruption.
Extra power draw through the USB-C port, probably. The same way you should have your device plugged into power for upgrades ... shutdowns mid-operation are bad.
Thank you for this, Steve. However, it doesn't answer my question- Is it necessary to connect to a power outlet to do a backup? btw- my mac has never shutdown during a backup.
Could you please explain why it's a good idea even if there is plenty of time left on the battery charge?
Because unexpected/unanticipated things happen. This forum is filled to the brim with situations like that.
It's just a suggestion, you do what you want to do with your machine.
Does my MacBook Pro (2020 M1) need to be connected to power to do Time Machine Backup?
