▶️ Watch a video of this tutorial on YouTube
Most first-time CCC users are looking to back up the Macintosh HD "startup disk". We walk through the steps for setting up that first backup task here.
Attach the backup disk to your computer
See the Choosing a backup drive Kbase article for advice and recommendations for external backup devices.
Open CCC
Applications > Carbon Copy Cloner
When you open CCC for the first time, you'll be guided through your first task setup. If you prefer to not be guided, click the Tips button in CCC's toolbar.
Select the Source
Click in the box under the SOURCE heading to view available sources.
Select your startup disk from the menu of available volumes for the source.
Select the Destination
Click in the box under the DESTINATION heading to view available destinations, then select your new backup drive from the menu of available volumes for the destination.
Follow the guidance of CCC's Backup Volume Setup Assistant
The Backup Volume Setup Assistant is designed to get your backups started off on the right foot. This assistant asserts that the destination will be used exclusively for this backup task, and offers alternative options if the selected volume cannot be used exclusively. This assistant also takes care of volume formatting, snapshot support, and makes it easy to enable encryption (which is optional).
What is the meaning of the badges on the source and destination icons?
You can hover your mouse over those badges for a description of what they indicate. You can also click on these badges to change the associated settings. Note that these badges are not presented when the settings are not applicable.
- SafetyNet is enabled [What is SafetyNet?]
- SafetyNet is disabled
- Snapshots are enabled on this volume [What are snapshots?]
- Snapshots are disabled on this volume
Begin the backup task
Click Start. The first time you run a backup task, CCC will prompt you to grant it Full Disk Access, and also to authenticate so it can install its privileged helper tool. This helper tool is required to perform privileged tasks, e.g. to copy system settings and applications.
Congratulations - your first backup is in progress!
Live Performance Chart
As CCC copies your files, you'll see a live performance chart like the one shown in the screenshot above. The white (or blue) line tracks the write rate and the green line tracks the number of files evaluated per second. Hover your mouse over the chart to see the numerical values.
The "Discovered" value indicates how many files CCC has found on the source. "Evaluated" indicates how many of those files have been evaluated to determine if they should be copied. "Copied" is the number of files copied. The estimated amount of time remaining, when available, follows the "Elapsed" value, adjacent to the 🏁 icon.
Smart Updates
If you run the same backup task again, CCC will copy only the items that have changed. There's no special setting to achieve this behavior, simply click the Start button again or configure your backup task to run automatically on a scheduled basis.
Task icons
CCC uses the following icons to describe tasks in the CCC sidebar:
- This item is a CCC task (task hasn't run, or the last result was dismissed)
- This item is a CCC task group (group hasn't run, or the last result was dismissed)
- Last event result: Task completed successfully
- Last event result: The task completed, but errors occurred while transferring some files
- Last event result: An error occurred that prevented the task from completing
- This task is configured to run "When the source is modified" (blue: monitoring is active, yellow: monitoring is suspended)
- This task is waiting (e.g. for another task to complete, for AC power to be restored, or for a network location requirement to be met)
Last event result icons: If you select the task or group, you can click on that icon in the Task Plan to dismiss the status, i.e. to express, "I have acknowledged this result".