Time Machine Stuck On Preparing Backup? Problem Solved

Time Machine is the default backup software in macOS.

People like to use it to backup operating systems on Mac devices.

Time Machine allows users to create backups easily and conveniently.

How to troubleshoot Time Machine preparing backup?

How to Backup Mac with Time Machine

Lets start with a brief introduction to Time Machine.

It was firstly introduced in Mac OS X Leopard to help users back their operating systems conveniently and safely.

Though Time Machine works perfect most of the time for backing up, it still fails sometimes.

Many users found theirTime Machine preparing backupall the time; the backing up process seems to last forever.

They dont know what happened and how to solve the problem efficiently.

But before that, lets take a look at how Time Machine works.

Heres How To Fix.

Time Machine Stuck on Preparing Backup

How long does Time Machine backup take?

This is a question hard to answer since the backup speed is infected by many factors.

Many reasons should be blamed for it.

Do you know why your laptop is slow and how to fix it?

What to do when Time Machine is always preparing backup?

However, many people said their Time Machine was stuck on the preparing backup stage.

Some even said their Time Machine wont backup during the first backup.

A Ture example ofTime Machine waiting to complete first backupfound in Apple Community.

You should follow this guide to decide whether the Time Machine backup is really stuck or just running slow.

#1: Stop the Currently Failing Backup Attempt

Stage 1: stop the preparing backup process.

Stage 2: delete the.inProgress file.

Stage 3: restart Mac.

just keep the Time Machine drive connected to your Mac during the rebooting.

Stage 4: try Time Machine backup again.

So it’s crucial that you stop the index manually.

#3.

#4.

#5.

Format the Backup Drive to APFS

Click here to know more about APFS vs Mac OS Extended.

#6.

Update the macOS

Apple advises you to upgrade to macOS Big Sur for getting the best Time Machine performance.

Other suggestions from Apple when your Time Machine couldnt complete the backup, stuck on preparing backup.

Both could result in a serious data loss situation.

So you should start to back or recover files (at least the important ones) from your Mac.

Well discuss the latter case.

Some may even bring damage to your system, disk, or data.

Pleaseread this pageif you want to know how to wipe a MacBook or how to factory reset MacBook.

Users only need to follow the on-screen instructions to finish the backup process step by step.

Hope this can help you solve your problem efficiently.