Apple's Target Disk Mode: How to turn a Mac into an external hard drive

Speaker 1: Let's say you want one of your Mac computers to show up on your other Mac, computer as an external hard drive today, I'm gonna show you how to use target disc mode to make one of your max show up as an external hard drive. Before I get started, take a moment to subscribe to the how to do it all channel for more. How to videos. Now, there are a couple ways to put your Mac into target disc mode. The first thing you need to do connect both your computers together with either a fire wire or a Thunderbolt cable. Okay? So I'm gonna use this Thunderbolt three USBC cable and connect one end to my MacBook [00:00:30] pro and the other end to my iMac, Speaker 1: Just like that. Now I'm ready to enable target dis mode on one machines. Now I'm going to enable it on my IMAX. So my IMAX hard drive shows up as an external hard drive on my MacBook pro on my iMac. I'm gonna go to the apple menu, then system preferences and click on startup disk. You'll see a button that says target disk mode, click on it. Then click restart [00:01:00] the computer will then and restart into target disc mode. And the iMac will display a hard drive icon on the screen. On my MacBook pro a new hard drive will appear as an external drive and boom, there's my IMAX hard drive. And you can now start moving files back and forth. Speaker 1: The other way to enter target disc mode is to your computer. And before it starts up, press and hold down the T key, the computer will boot into target dis [00:01:30] mode and become a new, external hard drive on your connected computer. This is very simple and very helpful for sharing files between computers without using an external hard drive that you have to upload and then download files, a straight shot from one computer to the other. There's no middleman now to eject the iMac from the MacBook pro you simply drag and drop the hard drive into the trash, and it will disconnect. Or you can right click on the drive and select eject on the iMac. I used as an external disc to turn off an end [00:02:00] target disc mode. You simply push the power button to shut it down and then disconnect the cable. Now, this is great for sharing files between computers or adding extra dis space. Speaker 1: If you need it, maybe there's a project you want to transfer to a more mobile computer or something like that. I've also used this method when I was having trouble with my iMac and it went and booed up and I needed to retrieve some important documents off the busted machine. Now it's worth mentioning that if you have Mac OS big, sir installed, you'll need to use the Thunderbolt three cable to make the connection. This fire wire [00:02:30] will no longer work. Fire wire won't work anymore for target dism mode on Macco S big, sir, it's also worth mentioning that target dism mode on the new apple Silicon max is way different. I've included a link to the apple support page on how to do that process in the description of this video. If, and when we get an apple Silicon Mac for how to do it all, we will make a video on how to do that process like subscribe and ring that bell for more helpful, how to videos and check out our related video on how to network two apple computers together with an ethernet [00:03:00] connection for sharing files and playing games. And thanks for watching you.