Backups: Trust but Verify

It’s easy to assume your backup app—whether it’s Time Machine, Carbon Copy Cloner, Backblaze, Retrospect, or something else—is quietly doing its job. But it’s possible for a bug to corrupt backups or for a destination disk to fail silently, such that you can’t restore backed-up data. We’ve seen this happen! For peace of mind, set a quarterly reminder to verify your backups. Test by restoring a few files and opening them: for Time Machine, enter Time Machine and restore a few important files; for a clone, mount it and open files; for a cloud backup, perform a small restore. Backup failures aren’t common, but since backups are your lifeline after a catastrophe, it’s worth confirming they work.

(Featured image by iStock.com/Andreus)


Social Media: Don’t just trust your backups—verify them. Each quarter, restore a few files from Time Machine, your clone, or your cloud backup, and make sure they open correctly. Silent failures happen; test restores prevent nasty surprises.

More Insights

Tech Tip

How to Look Up a Saved Wi-Fi Network Password

Apple offers several simple ways to share Wi-Fi network passwords. When someone nearby tries to connect to a Wi-Fi network with an iPhone, iPad, or Mac, and they are in your Contacts app, you will be automatically prompted to share the network password with them. Additionally, in the Passwords app, you can display a Wi-Fi […]

Read More »
Tech Article

Keep Your IT Budget Working During a Slowdown

When business slows down, it’s tempting to reduce IT spending. But that approach often backfires, creating bigger problems—and larger bills—down the road. Beyond the productive work you accomplish on your Macs, your technology infrastructure enables you to communicate with clients, send invoices, manage schedules, and get paid. A downturn is precisely when you need those […]

Read More »
Tech Tip

New Apple Creator Studio Bundles Pro Apps

Apple has introduced Apple Creator Studio, a subscription bundle of Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, Pixelmator Pro, Motion, Compressor, and MainStage, priced at $12.99 per month or $129 per year (with education pricing at $2.99 per month or $29.99 per year). The bundle also includes premium content and a few AI tools for the iWork […]

Read More »
Tech Article

Why Your Windows Reopen (Or Don’t) As You Expect

Have you noticed that when you restart your Mac or relaunch an app, your previous windows and documents sometimes reappear exactly as you left them, but at other times you’re greeted with a clean slate? This behavior is controlled by Resume, a technology introduced in OS X 10.7 Lion back in 2011. Resume automatically reopens […]

Read More »
Tech Tip

Make Finder Window Columns Resize to Fit Filenames

Column view in the Finder has an annoying tendency to either show overly wide columns that waste space or truncate long filenames, forcing you to drag a column divider to see more of the name. In macOS 26.1 Tahoe, Apple added an option to the Finder’s View Options window that automatically adjusts column widths to […]

Read More »

If you are here and not sure how to proceed, please call us at 626-286-2350, and we would be happy to help you find a solution to your needs.