However, you won’t free up any space on your external drive this way. Turn off Time Machine by clicking on the big slider on the left-hand side.Īfter turning it off, Time Machine will no longer automatically back up your files.

Find the Time Machine icon at the bottom of the window.

You can also use the Dock and click the “System Preferences” icon. Then choose “System Preferences” from the drop-down list.

Move your cursor to the top-left corner of the screen and click on the Apple icon. Open “System Preferences” on your Mac.It’s pretty straightforward and only requires a few simple steps: That way, it’ll automatically stop backing up your files, but you’ll still be able to do it manually. Option 1: Turn Off All Backups Using the Time Machine Appįor starters, you can try turning off Time Machine by using the app. In this article, we’ll show you how to turn off Time Machine by using the app or a nifty Terminal command. You might want to free up some of that space and switch to doing manual backups. However, since the program is so thorough, the backup files can quickly overload your external drive.

Format mac disk for time machine