You can access it by clicking the icon and holding down the Option key.

Pictures, spreadsheets, emails, financial data or the draft of that novel youve been writingyou name it.

Yet something most people rarely do, if ever, is verify that your backups are working properly.

Here are a few things you can do to make sure your backups are in top shape.

To ensure the original data is in the best shape, here are some ways to check both the data and the media it exists on.

Sometimes this can happen in a few months, other times it can take years before an issue manifests.

Sudden loss of power, improper shutdowns or botched installations or updates can also damage a drives formatting.

This is not a hardware type of damage, but it can affect your data.

Select your drive in the left column; the one you want has the same name as your startup disk, in case more than one drive is listed, and then click the First Aid button.

It reads out your drives S.M.A.R.T.

The utility sits in your menu bar and stays out of your way until you need it.

Run SMART Utility to see if the hardware is in good shape, and then move on to the next step.

For this, there is only one tool to recommend and thats DiskWarrior by Alsoft.

It checks your files and folders, and also offers to optimize and replace the current file structures.

This utility is as close to magic as youll ever see; Ive seen it bring back files that were corrupted, fix the dreaded spinning beach ball, speed up the Mac, and more.

Mostly used once a Mac starts experiencing issues, this is also an amazing preventative maintenance utility.

I run it once a month or when it tells me a volume is in less-than-great-shape to rebuild my directories, and have been doing so for over a decade.

You can use it to back up to external drives or network volumes.

Checking the above mentioned settings is as easy as opening the preferences from the menu bar icon or by going to System Preferences Time Machine.

To see if there are items in the excluded list that shouldnt be there, click the Options button.

If you want to verify the settings or make changes, click the Edit Settings button.

Were making good progress here The source data is OK, as well as the media that data sits on and your backup settings all check out.

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