How do I restore individual files/folders from Time Machine to a PC?

My Mac of six years have crashed and been sent to the apple hospital for surgery, but I had time machine backing up all my files. Yah! Now with the help of 'macdrive' I can see the files on my windows computer, but when I tried to restore any individual files or folders to the pc, nothing.
I would click on the files from my external drive and a box comes up for 'where do you want to copy selected files?'. Right-clicking only provide the 'copy', 'copy to', and 'create a shortup' options. Whichever options I try, no copies/restored files is created.
How do I restore the files (not the entire system, just pictures and documents) to a windows computer?
Help please

You need to be more specific what types of files are you trying to restore. It sounds like you just need to learn how to use TM which is pretty darn easy. Here is one good article and you can always use Apple's find out how video on TM.
Time Machine FAQ

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Cannot restore some files/folders from Time Machine Backup

When I try and restore files or folders from my Pictures folder, which is a sub folder of my user I get the message "The operation can’t be completed because you don’t have permission to access xxxx". As far as I can tell this has only just started to happen because I've recovered stuff from the folder since I bought the machine in July. Yesterday I deleted an old Time Machine backup folder from the Time Machine disc. This caused empty trash to go berserk - the "files to delete" count went negative and I had to stop/restart the empty trash command about 20 times before it sorted itself out. Maybe this has screwed some permissions somewhere? I have run disc utility and repaied permissions on my hard drive and verified the TM drive. Still no joy. The permissions for Pictures look OK. Anyone any ideas?

Yesterday I deleted an old Time Machine backup folder from the Time Machine disc. This caused empty trash to go berserk - the "files to delete" count went negative
Probably you corrupted your Time Machine Backup by manually deleting older backups- that is dangerous.
See Pondni's advice on how to fix it - Time Machine trouble Shooting
I hope that helps
Léonie

How can I restore Parental Control Settings from Time Machine Backup?

I was trying to adjust one of the parental controlled accounts for my child. I disabled parental controls, rebooted, and re-enabled it. Now all the settings that I had setup before are gone. How can I restore Parental Control Settings from Time Machine Backup?

Hi ...
I've found a solution to my problem.
Time Machine locates extenal HDD backups differently depending if they were done via a network or via a USB/FireWire/Thunderbolt connection.
My initial backup was done via a direct Thunderbolt connection. I ran into the above issue b/c the second time when I tried looking for the backup file the HDD was conencted to my iMac and I was accessing it via a network conenction.
I simply connected the drive directly to my MacBook pro and ... voila. I was able to see the backup, select the iPhoto library and begin the restore.
Hope this helps.
BTW - I found this out by reading the 'blue box' selection on this page: http://pondini.org/TM/E2.html
(Thanks goes to Pondini!)

How do I restore smtp mail setting from time machine?

Earlier today I was fooling around with my smtp mail settings and managed to mess them up.
How do I restore smtp mail setting from time machine?
I'm using Lion 10.7.4
Messages and incoming mail works fine. It's just the smtp mail setting that's the problem.
Any help greatly appreciated.

The mail rules are stored in your ~/Library/Mobile Documents/com~apple~mail/Data.MailData folder, in a plist called SyncedRules.plist.
If you're signed into iCloud D&D, that's where you'll find it.
If you're *not* signed into iCloud, then you probably have a folder called something like ~/Library/Mobile Documents.####### where the # signs are actual numbers. Digging into that folder, you'll fild the SyncedRules.plist file.
Thing is, I don't know how Mail uses rules without iCloud; if there's a "local" rules location. There probably is, but someone else who's not using iCloud may have to help you there...

How do I restore Groups to Contacts from time machine?

How do I restore groups to Contacts using time machine? I somehow managed to duplicate many groups and contacts in Contacts, so I deleted everything and tried to restore them using time machine backup from a few days before. It restored all my contacts, but none of my groups. If you select a group and click restore it will restore all the contacts in the group, but not the group itself. I had many groups with many contacts in each and would really prefer not to do this manually. I can see the groups in the time machine backup, but cannot figure out how to restore them. I know from researching online that with Address Books and previous operating systems you could go to ~Library/Applications Support/AddressBook and restore the whole file, but either this operating systems hides the necessary files or Contacts is set up differently than AddressBook was. I am using OS 10.9.5 and Contacts version 8.0 on a MacbookPro 13 inch mid 2010.

Here is what I have tried:
1. Finder>Go>(Option)Library>Address Book(highlighted)with files showing in right column. Opened Time Machine and Address Book folder is there. Tried to go back to several previous dates from several months ago. None will highlight in order for the Restore button to light up.
2. Finder>Mac HD (under Devices)>(Option)Library>Address Book (same as above). Again, cannot go anywhere back in time to highlight a date for Restore button to light up.
Note: I was able to use Time Machine to restore my Contacts with no problem. However, they are All Contacts only and did not restore my Groups. I do know how to make groups again and highlight and drag them back, but wanted to see if there was a way to restore the groups. I will post another question as to why my Time Machine won't let me restore the Address Book as well as the Contacts. Thank you for your time and patience.

Installed new SSD. How do I get my files back from Time Machine?

Hi all, if you take the time to read my issue, thanks a lot. I appreciate any help you can offer, and sorry if anything is unclear...
The 1tb drive eventually failed on my 2009 27", quad core i7 imac. I had USB backup using time machine to an external 2 tb disk.
Repair guy took my mac to his shop, and installed a new samsung 1tb SSD.
He had trouble reinstalling from my time machine backup - so he's just installing Yosemite (I was using 10.8.x?) and giving it back to me with a fresh install of Yosemite.
When he tried to use time machine to restore my system to how it was, he started the process, and it said that it would take 13 hours, so he left it overnight.
When he returned, he found a white screen with a frozen mouse pointer. He did a hard reboot, and then could not access the drive at all - the system would not allow him to read the drive and he had to take the drive out, reformat from another mac, and then install Yosemite again.
Now he has suggested that I simply drag and drop all my folders from the USB time machine backup into my computer, and seems to think this will get things back to how they were. I'm not sure that it works like that though...I'd expect certain applications need to be installed, settings changed, permissions granted, passwords entered...that kind of thing.
Now I have a choice - whether to
A) reinstall my applications one at a time, and then copy the data from my backup drive.
B) manually drag and drop all the files from the most recent backup folder into the "computer" folder. (This was his suggestion)
C) attempt some kind of migration using the Migration assistant. (I believe this is what the guy tried- he started it off, it said "13 hours remaining) he left it running overnight, and came back to a static white screen with frozen mouse, he powered down, then when he switched it back on, the screen did not load any OS (not sure whether it had booted into some kind of BIOS, but he said it was so unresponsive that he had to remove the drive and reformat it from another computer).
D) Try some other application for intelligently restoring my apps and data from the Time Machine backup.
To be honest, my main concern is screwing things up badly! I'm veering towards reinstalling my apps, even if it means fixing up preference settings and typing in codes etc... I would rather take a slow and steady approach rather than a "risk having to take it back to the shop/take it apart" approach.
Also, is migration different from restoring from time-machine?
Perhaps you could advise me? Many thanks

Restart the computer and hold the Command & R keys.
Thanks - I didn't know how to do that!
I did that, and it went through the steps for restoring from the time machine backup. I didn't click on "restore" just yet... My concern is that when the guy in the shop tried that, it resulted in the serious failure that required the drive to be removed and formatted from another computer.
I'm wondering what might have caused that - is it possible that the external drive had a failure, or (more likely) that the drive caddy it sits in briefly lost power or something?
Also, can you tell me if simply drag-dropping the files from the time-machine backup would result in everything returning to its initial state? Or is that (as I suspect) a bad idea?
Right now I have a fresh Yosemite install which works. I'd rather have that, and slowly restore my files and apps manually than risk getting the same result as the guy in the shop. Do you think that restoring from the restore partition is worth trying again?

How do I restore an adjusted version from Time Machine?

I use time machine.
How do I restore an adjusted version?
E.g. I take a 1000 pix, bring them into a project, spend a few days making adjustments.
Client cancels project.
I delete project.
Month later I figure out a new market for that project. (Yeah, I shouldn't have been so quick to delete...Work with me)
I can restore the masters from Time Machine. (I use referenced images)
How do I recover my adjustments, without overwriting my library? Groveling through the .aplibrary they are stored as xml files, but there is a chane of references and set of encoding that is not transparent.
At this point the ONLY way I can see is to:
* Rename my present library
* Restore the entire library, whcih if I have lots of images can take hours.
* Find the project.
* Export the project.
* Delete extra library.
* Rename my original library.
While this gets my adjustments back, it does NOT get them back in an editable form. they are now locked in.
Is there a way to export versions as version info? E.g. as an xml file that sits in the same directory as the master?
Spin the question differently. How can I send YOU a set of versions of a particular master, WITHOUT copying the data of the master for each version.
Say we have referenced files on a network server. I want to send you a version, but NOT the master.
E.g. I send you ONE master, and 6 versions of it. In YOUR version of aperture how can you load the 6 versions to continue tweeking them.

There is another, huge thread on TM backups on this forum and exactly this issue has come up. Sadly, no one has a perfect answer. I do not have a spare drive available to test this myself, but I would try something along these lines.
-- Ask TM to restore your full Library and the Masters, if Referenced. I believe that TM will give you the option to not overwriting your current Library, but be careful. However you do, stick this "Recovery Library" out somewhere. (Yes, this is gonna take some time, run it overnight.)
-- Open "Recovery" with Aperture and select the Project(s) that contain the images you want. Export these "Projects as New Library." (Don't export as either Versions or Masters.) I would select the box "Consolidate Masters" and I would probably discard the Previews. Stick this somewhere.
-- Now open "Original Library" and import the "Library" that you exported back into your Original Library as something like "Stupid Lost Project."
-- You should now have a Project full of adjusted, and adjustable images. (N.B. this is basically the technique I use with my laptop. I shoot, load into AP3 on the laptop, noodle, and then export/import into AP3 on the MacPro when I get home.)
-- Clean up. (Delete "Recovery", convert the recovered Project back to Referenced Masters, if you wish, etc.)
One good argument for never throwing those old USB drives away.
I have missed some of the details in the process, so be careful, but I believe that this will work until Apple lets us run Aperture inside Time Machine.
Best wishes.

How can I restore a deleted calendar from time machine

I accidentally deleted one of my calendars. How can I restore it from time machine?

I'm not sure why it didn't work. I deleted the old Calendar folder and then replaced it with a Time Machine version of the same folder from the previous day. Then I opened iCal and there was still nothing there.
The reason I just deleted Calendar folder and it's sub-folders and tried to start from scratch is because I could tell which sub-folder was for any one specific calendar since the sub-folder names were in some sort of code.

How can I restore just one application from Time Machine?

Hello, I have just one application that is really acting quirky and won't load correctly anymore and I would like to restore that application from Time Machine but am just not sure how to do that. Can someone please walk me through step by step on how to restore just one application. Thank you. Jean
Message was edited by: anokienurse

Before you restore an application from a Time Machine backup it would be wiser to remove the current installed copy then reinstall from the application's original distribution medium - download, CD/DVD, etc. The reason for this is that Time Machine backs up every hour. By now the bad version of this application is now backed up to your Time Machine backup drive. Restoring from the backup won't resolve your problem.
First, uninstall the old program. If the program came with an uninstaller then use it. If not then start by deleting the application from the Applications folder. Then locate all the support files associated with the application and remove them, too. Look for these in:
/Users/yourusername/Library/Preferences
/Users/yourusername/Library/Applications Support
Applications may come with a separate uninstaller program that could also be in your Applications folder. Some applications may install other files in other locations on your computer. If you tell us what the application is we may be able to provide additional help.
You may find more information here: The XLab FAQs. Read the FAQ on uninstalling software.

How can I restore an old backup from Time Machine to my iPhone 5?

I have the iPhone 5 that I had previously transferred my apps and other data to from my iPhone 4. Due to poor battery life, I had to restore the iPhone 5 as a new phone. This helped battery life but now I habve lost my text messages, App data and photos. I use Time Machine on my Mac so whayt do I need to do to get the data back on my phone. I'd like to do this without restoring the phone but rather syncing it with data recovered from Time Machine. I don't want to screw up the battery life again.

Hi ...
I've found a solution to my problem.
Time Machine locates extenal HDD backups differently depending if they were done via a network or via a USB/FireWire/Thunderbolt connection.
My initial backup was done via a direct Thunderbolt connection. I ran into the above issue b/c the second time when I tried looking for the backup file the HDD was conencted to my iMac and I was accessing it via a network conenction.
I simply connected the drive directly to my MacBook pro and ... voila. I was able to see the backup, select the iPhoto library and begin the restore.
Hope this helps.
BTW - I found this out by reading the 'blue box' selection on this page: http://pondini.org/TM/E2.html
(Thanks goes to Pondini!)

How do I restore a second volume from Time Machine?

I lost an external hard drive due to failure. Luckily, I found out that for some reason Time Machine had backed up the drive's volume along with my startup internal drive.
Now I just want to restore that lost drive's volume folder from Time Machine to a NEW external drive. However, I imagine that if I merely click "Restore" from Time Machine app it will attempt to put this volume (which is 100GB) onto my internal drive.
Is there a way to direct the location of the restore of that volume folder to my new external drive? Or can I just go into my Time Machine Backup drive and drag and drop the volume contents from the Time Machine volume onto it?

I was able to access my external disk through the status bar of the finder in Time Machine: double click on the Macintoshand select the drive. I have not restored yet (no sufficient room) but it should be ok.

How do I restore a raid 1 from time machine?

I have 2HDs for a RAID 1 mirror. I need to restore from Time Machine.
I can restore to one HD but can't create the mirror without having the restored drive erased or I can create the mirror but can't restore to the mirror.
Can someone either tell me what I need to do or point me to the right place for the answer
Thank you.

Yes, each drive is as it should be.
What I ended up doing was first, boot using the original Leapard server disc, then with Disk Utility create the RAID1. Then I installed a "new" Leopard server. Then I reboot back into the Leopard disc and restored from Time machine to the RAID1 drive.
Problem solved. Thank you for you time.

Permissions error when trying restore of individual files/folders in Time Machine

Hi,
I am trying to restore an individual file or folder from my time machine backup in Snow Leopard and TM doesn't allow me to do so. The error message that I get is: "The folder "foldername" can't be opened because you don't have permissions to see its contents."
I am running Snow Leopard and always backed up using TM, approx. once per month.
Approx. one month ago, I did a full HD wipe and system reinstall from the scratch without migrating any files, using slightly new User Names etc. After the re-install, I ran TM twice on the newly installed configuration and using my same old external backup drive. I did not change the OS. It was SL before and I re-installed SL.
So, I have quite a coherent set of incremental backups and I can also "see" all the folders in my backup volume's directory. Only, I can't access or restore anything that is on the "timeline" before the system re-install.
I found out that it has something to do with the User Permissions, but I can't figure out how to fix it because when I try to use "Get Info" on the TM folder that I want to restore, the permissions are grayed out and I can't add myself to it.
Help, I really need these old files and folders. After all, that was what I thought TM was good for.
Thanks.

You need to be more specific what types of files are you trying to restore. It sounds like you just need to learn how to use TM which is pretty darn easy. Here is one good article and you can always use Apple's find out how video on TM.
Time Machine FAQ

How do I retrieve specific files/folders from separate machine's backup

Had a hard drive failure this morning. Now I'm on a temporary laptop without my files. I share a Time Capsule between 4 users. My backup is on there, and looks ok (although, I can't really figure out how to browse what's backed up - separate issue).
On my temporary machine, I'd like to be able to grab specific files from my backup while I wait to get my machine back from support.
I referenced FAQ tip 17 ( http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/17.html ) - and when I open up the Browse other Time Machine Disks - it's blank.
Any Ideas would be tremendously helpful, and I will love you for ever and ever and ever.

majmanMac wrote:
I referenced FAQ tip 17 ( http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/17.html ) - and when I open up the Browse other Time Machine Disks - it's blank.
You'll probably have to manually mount the sparse bundle for the desired Mac, by double-clicking it via the Finder. Then it should show up in the list.
But you may not be able to view or restore much that way; the user account on the temporary laptop probably isn't recognized as the same user in the backups of the other Mac. Your best bet in that case is to use +Migration Assistant+ to transfer the user account in question to the temporary laptop. Then you can sign on there, just as you did on your Mac. See: [Using Migration Assistant|http://web.me.com/pondini/AppleTips/Migrate.html].
Note that if space is a problem, you can omit the contents of some of the top-level folders. And, once the account has been transferred, you should be able to restore selectively from those backups, via the "Star Wars" display.

How can I restore an iPhoto library from Time Machine (ML) - when I TM doesn't see the backup??

Hi,
I recently did a Time Machine backup of my MacBook Pro (Mountain Lion) onto an external HDD. Around the time of the last backup, my system was behaving funny so I decided to rebuild the OS X.
Because the last TM backup was of a system that as mentioned, was somewhat 'unstable', and I only had a few backups available (didn't have TM running too long beforehand) - I decided not to use TM to 'restore' my system. I just did a clean install of ML and planned on pulling files over manually. I'd done this before and it worked a treat.
This time ran into a snag. The backup disk TM used was an external HDD which I wanted to upgrade (suffice to say it works fine). So, I needed to move the backup.backupdb directory to my other HDD. The copy seemed to work fine ... so far so good.
I installed the new ML OS on my MacBook Pro and that was fine too. I was able to pull most of my files over by going into the TM backup and copying what I needed.
BUT, for some reason, this didn't work for the iPhoto library?
Alas, I found that you need to do a 'restore' iPhoto library file from whithin TM. So I fired up TM and noticed that it didn't recognise the old backup file located on the HDD. I.e. when I turned on TM, pointed it to the external HDD (where I copied the previous backup to), it started a fresh backup.
So ... my question is - "How do I restore the iPhoto library if I can't get to it from TM?"
Thanks in advance to anyone that can help! The last 15 years of photos are stored in this library!

Hi ...
I've found a solution to my problem.
Time Machine locates extenal HDD backups differently depending if they were done via a network or via a USB/FireWire/Thunderbolt connection.
My initial backup was done via a direct Thunderbolt connection. I ran into the above issue b/c the second time when I tried looking for the backup file the HDD was conencted to my iMac and I was accessing it via a network conenction.
I simply connected the drive directly to my MacBook pro and ... voila. I was able to see the backup, select the iPhoto library and begin the restore.
Hope this helps.
BTW - I found this out by reading the 'blue box' selection on this page: http://pondini.org/TM/E2.html
(Thanks goes to Pondini!)

How do I restore individual files/folders from Time Machine to a PC?

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