How to Transfer Mac Files to an External Hard Drive

With an external hard drive, you can transfer large files off of your Mac computer to free up space on your primary internal hard drive. Most external hard drives connect to Macs using either a Firewire or USB cable. Once you have transferred files from your Mac onto an external hard drive, you can eject the drive and move the data to another computer.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Mac running OS X 10.4 or later External hard drive Power adapter USB or Firewire cable

1. Attach the power adapter to the external hard drive and then plug it in to a standard electrical outlet.

2. Connect the external hard drive to your Mac using the Firewire or USB cable.

3. Turn on the external hard drive and log in to your computer.

4. Open a new finder window by clicking on the icon in the Dock.

5. Click on the name of the external hard drive under the "Devices" list on the left side of the Finder window. This will open a window that displays all of the content currently on the external hard drive.

6. Drag and drop files from your computer into the external hard drive window. A progress bar will pop up on the screen. When the copying process is complete, the data has been successfully transferred to the external hard drive.