Jan 25 2008
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Time Machine only runs if your MacBook is plugged in
Time Machine is a great feature of Apple’s computers. It backs up your Mac every hour, as long as you have a backup disk connected to the USB or Firewire port. Because it only needs to back up whatever changed in the last hour, it only takes a few seconds to do.
But on my wife’s MacBook it was not doing automatic backups:
The “Next Backup” field just contains two dashes.
The solution was easy: plug in the computer.
It turns out that Time Machine doesn’t run automatically when your notebook computer is not plugged in. It does this to preserve battery life. As soon as you plug it in, the “Next Backup” time shows up and automatic backups will continue.
