11 ways to secure your documents, data, and passwords
From backing up to banishing paper, ingrain these habits into your daily Mac and mobile device routines
TURN ON iCLOUD
If you’re not using iCloud, turn it on in System Preferences > Apple ID. Ideally, activate everything, including iCloud Drive, Photos, Email, Contacts, Calendar, Notes, Safari, and Keychain. This gets vital content into the cloud, making it accessible on any Apple device you’re signed into with your Apple ID. Although it’s not a backup, it provides a measure of protection, in that if you lose a device, you can sign into your account on another.
USE TIME MACHINE
Apple makes it easy to backup your Mac — plug in an external drive and you’ll be asked if you want to use Time Machine. Mobile hard drives will do — an external 1TB one costs under $50; or you can opt for speed with an SSD, which will set you back around $130 and up. If your drive is in the wrong format, you’ll be prompted to erase and reformat it to APFS format. In the event of disaster, you can recover documents backed up using Time Machine to a new Mac.
TRY BACKBLAZE
If your kit is destroyed or stolen, Time Machine won’t help. iCloud will to some degree, but it doesn’t capture everything on your Mac. We therefore recommend using Backblaze ($6 per month, backblaze.com) as well, which securely backs up your Mac to Backblaze’s servers. As long as your Mac’s not been disconnected for 30 days, you can download your files for free. In a hurry? Backblaze will ship your backup on a drive — and will refund the charge for that if the drive’s
returned within 30 days.
GET IMAZING
You should backup Apple mobile devices to iCloud, but it’s worth using iMazing (from $34.99, imazing.com) too. The app offers features and flexibility far beyond Apple’s equivalent Mac– oriented system in Finder, enabling you to extract iPhone and iPad apps,
transfer documents and music to and from devices, and even explore backups when your devices are not connected.
5 REGULARLY REPLACE DRIVES
Mechanical hard drives and even SSDs don’t last forever. To protect your data rather than wearing backup drives into the ground, regularly swap them out. A good rule of thumb is to get a new drive when you perform a major macOS upgrade or buy a new Mac. That also gives you a “breakpoint” for local files at that time. Label your drive, put it in a drawer, and you can later access data from a specific year or Mac.
6 UPDATE APPS AND MACOS
Updating macOS can be scary — and we don’t recommend doing so the very second a new release appears. But don’t lag too much. Apple provides security updates for older versions of macOS, but you really want to be using the latest major iteration of operating systems across your devices. Similarly, keep other apps up to date, to ensure you’re not using an older one that could pose a security risk.
7 DON’T SHARE TOO MUCH ONLINE
Don’t be complacent online. Safari prevents cross–site tracking, but also use Apple’s sign–in tech to obfuscate your email address. Don’t save credit card details on shopping sites unless you have to — instead use iCloud Keychain to insert details at the point of purchase. And be careful how much private info you share — including of young children. They cannot provide consent and might later resent finding their every childhood deed recorded online.
8 SCAN PAPER
We don’t think of paper as data, but we should, given that it’s easy to lose. When you receive an important paper document, scan it to your Mac. If you don’t have a flatbed scanner, use an iPhone/iPad and Continuity to “scan” the document directly to your Mac. Alternatively, try a third party iPhone app like Adobe Scan (free), which performs OCR on each image, making it possible to copy and paste its text.
9 EXPORT IMPORTANT CLOUD DOCUMENTS
The Cloud is great, but things can go wrong. So if you’ve spent hours working on a vital project in Google Docs, export a copy to your Mac — which, because you’re now using the backup solutions we mentioned earlier, will be secured multiple times. Best case scenario: you’ll never need those copies. But you’ll be grateful if you ever do.
10 CHOOSE PASSWORDS CAREFULLY
Many people use easily guessed passwords or the same password for multiple sites and services, risking their accounts being compromised. For new passwords, let Safari create them. For existing ones, head into the Passwords section of Safari’s preferences and check if there are any security recommendations. If so, make sure to update the relevant passwords.
11 BE WARY OF PHISHING
It’s easy to scoff at the least authentic phishing emails, such as one we saw from “appel”, demanding we sign into our ‘i–tunes’ account. But some attacks are now sophisticated and hard to tell apart from the real thing. Always be vigilant when in Mail. And when you get an email warning you of an account problem, don’t click a link — manually sign in using Safari to see if anything’s wrong. Chances are, it won’t be.