Move your data to External drive

easy Takes minutes

Once you have your data out of the big services and cleaned up, it needs to live somewhere you control. This guide covers moving your archive to External drive.

The 3-2-1 backup rule ->

Step by step

  1. Pick a drive with room to spare

    Check the total size Muletto reports for your library and choose a drive with at least twice that, so you have room to grow.

  2. Format it for long life

    exFAT works on both Windows and macOS. Use NTFS if the drive will only ever be used with Windows, or APFS for macOS only.

  3. Copy the organized folders

    Save your cleaned Year and Month folders straight to the drive. Avoid app-specific libraries so the files stay readable on any computer.

  4. Verify, then keep a second copy

    Confirm the file count and size match. One drive is not a backup: keep a second copy elsewhere, ideally in another building.

  5. Test it once a year

    Plug it in and open a few files. Drives fail quietly, and an untested backup is only a hope.

Worth knowing

The 3-2-1 rule: three copies of anything you care about, on two kinds of media, with one of them somewhere else.