Retrieving files from Time Machine after updating to Snow Leopard

Updated my 2 year old iMac to Snow Leopard and erased the hard disk first to do a clean start. Having carried out all the updates and loaded on iLife11 tried to use the migration assistant to retrieve data from Time Machine backup but will only find the updated iMac! How do I get it to retrieve from previous Time Machine backups? Know they are on the external Hard Drive somewhere as it still has 400GB on it. Thanks

+Setup Assistant+ and +Migration Assistant+ automatically use the most recent backup. There's no choice. See #19 in [Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/FAQ.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).
Your best bet is to do a +full system restore+ per #14 in the FAQ. Choose the last backup before the upgrade. That will, of course, put you back on Leopard.
Then just install Snow Leopard (there are no +Erase and Install+ or +Archive and Install+ options anymore). That will install the new version of OSX, without touching anything else.
Potential problems with using +Migration Assistant+ (after setting-up a user account), are that you end up with an extra account; and the accounts you migrate may not be recognized as the same ones as on your backups or other volumes, and won't have the proper permissions to them.
Message was edited by: Pondini

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Cannot retrieve files from Time Machine.

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I don't know what you mean by "arrows". After Entering TM, put your pointer over one of the coloured (usually purple) dated bars at the right of the screen. That will bring (usually the desktop) for that date to the front. Navigate in the usual way to find the old file, select it, and press the big Restore button on the bottom left of your screen. As I remember it, a copy of that file will appear beside the current original with something like "Restored" added to is title. When you quit TM (Cancel) that restored file should appear beside its current version. (Or, if it's host folder has been deleted, smewhere else but I can't remember where - search for it.)

How to restore files from Time Machine after Clean Install of Mavericks

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Hi Linc,
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Weird thing is on Febr 11 when I relised my possible mistake and renamed the Bootdrive back to what it was initially ie. Macintosh HD despite this I have access to all backup data since the Clean Install in both folders MacPro-320GB as well as Macintosh HD but not to any data prior to the Clean Install.
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Restoring files from Time Machine after installing Maverick

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When you complete the installation and boot into the Setup Assistant use the opportunity to restore from a TM backup which will appear in the Assistant. Just have the backup drive connected. You can then restore from the most recent backups of your Home folder, third-party applications and support files, and system preferences.
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i don't know if it is related and it's not really my question, but i cannot access any of my itunes music now as it says that it cannot find original files. super frustrating as no one seems to know how to help with this. these two issues arose after my time machine backup that the apple genius told me would certainly back up all of my files. it seems i did something wrong prior to the backup or prior to the software updates that i did after the rewrite. any suggestions that could point me in the right direction are appreciated.

That path is still correct - at least it is on my system - but unless you had Library brought out into a place where it could be found, in the Sidebar for instance, I don't know how you'd get into it in Time Machine. Try this, though: access the user's Library folder via the Go To Folder command, then drag the Library folder into the sidebar. Then run Time Machine and see if the Library folder persists in the TM interface. If it does, you should then be able to navigate into Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/ and find and restore the backup folder.
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Ho do i restore my files from time machine after a full system restore?

I have just had a full system restore on my MAC, thanks to the genious bar in Bondi, prior to doing this i backed everything on my external hard drive using time machine, i now want to put everything back on to my MAC, including emails, music, photos, movies and important docs etc. what is the best way to do this?
cheers Colin,

See Here > How do I restore my entire system?
From Here > http://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html
More Info Here > http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html

Can't restore files from Time machine backup?

I kinda successfully restored my files from Time Machine after a clean re-install of Snow Leopard (Time Machine thought they were new files, though, so backed up the 26 GB... waste of space), but now I'm trying to restore the files of the other user on the computer. In her pictures folder, I can't copy the iPhoto Library because I don't have permission to access it! The same problem occurred on my account too, but I was able to go to my Time Machine drive and manually change the permissions for the files I wanted, which doesn't work on her account.
I have made a Youtube video of the error:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1__PdyAetVg
Can anyone assist me in restoring the files? That's all I need help in. Thanks

wrongusername wrote:
But if I transfer everything with the Setup Assistant, won't I once again be experiencing the problems I had?
If the problems were caused by your data. But that's extremely unlikely. It may have been an app, or, much more likely from your description, something corrupted in the Leopard OS. That's one of the problems with upgrading a sick system without knowing what or where the causes are. It's a bit like a brain surgeon operating on himself: if he isn't in tip-top shape to start with, his condition is likely to change, and not for the better.
Most of us would have recommended first simply doing a +*Repair Disk+* on your internal HD; if that didn't help, installing the "combo" Leopard update; if that didn't work, doing an +Archive and Install+ and re-installing the "combo."
After a clean re-install of Snow Leopard, my Mac worked fine again (except for the TM trouble). So it probably had something to do with my old files.
Probably not. Much more likely OSX was somehow damaged. And you got a whole new one.
How come I could read the files on my external HD and yet not be able to copy the files?
Time Machine uses special "deny everybody everything" permissions on it's backups, among other things, in an attempt to keep us mere mortals from moving, changing, or deleting things and corrupting them.

Retrieve ipad files from time machine

I have a number of files on my ipad that are stored in time machine.
Is there any way to access and retrieve these without totally rebuilding my ipad?

It depends on which files. If they are files that can be transferred to the iPad by connecting to iTunes then you can copy the files from Time Machine to your iTunes file sharing then transfer the files to your iPad:
About File Sharing on iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch - Apple Support

How do you retrieve individual files from Time Machine?

If a file original is lost or becomes corrupted, is there anyway to retrieve that individual files from Time Machine? If so, how?

ElRay (Amazingly, not the 1st) wrote:
SharonZ wrote:
Time Machine finds that file, and not other files that meet the criteria. BUT...
That's not what TM was doing. My search criteria was "by filename", however when I try to go backwards in TM, that limit is lost and it appears to be returning every file in the rolled-up weekly archive. This is especially odd, because I have since determined that the file was actually corrupted before TM was running, so there should be only one version of the file in TM's archives.
No, it was a file sitting on my disk. Email was mentioned, because the fact that every email in every junk folder appears as a separate item to be restored, which is what triggers that little "too many files to show you at one time" issue.
So your name search returned lots of junk mail items. I shudder to think what the file name was that you were searching for! <g>
Also: you can tell Time Machine to ignore your junk mail if you've filtered the junk mail in Mail into a different folder/box.
I figured that one out. I had used Spotlight to find the junk mailboxes, but couldn't, only the messages "labeled" junk. I had to use 'find' in Terminal.app to actually find Mail's junk & spam folders.
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You've already found your Junk mail, of course, but I'm suggesting this as a general approach, especially for other readers of this thread, who might not want to touch Terminal.
But, back to one of your initial problems: TM seemed to lose your search criteria. Do you think it was related to the high number of " hits"? Does it work for you otherwise, when you search for something less general?

I can't restore 'library' with support files from Time Machine

backup - I can't restore 'library' with support files from Time Machine - Ask Different
Due to an accident, my entire applications folder with all the support files, including plists and caches got deleted.
I tried restoring by files from the most recent Time Machine backups but I cannot retrieve my applications with the support files.
I even tried it with migration assistant on a new image.
Is this impossible?
Must I start from scratch?
Details of the ‘accident’
I was using this app called ‘AppCleaner’ that also automatically deletes related support files which are normally left behind if one simply trashes an Application.
In the search view, I typed the app name and I selected all the apps in the results using Command + A. Unfortunately, this selected every single Application in the Applications Folder in the background and I trashed and deleted all files.
Anyway.
I tried to restore the applications and library from my Time Machine Back-ups but failed to do so because I didn’t have enough space to restore. (I have a 11inch Macbook Air 2012 64GB SSD
When I tried to restart in recovery mode, I had the same problem, I was disallowed the option to restore using my time capsule backups because my SSD didn’t have enough space for the backup.
I then tried to restore it to a totally different but new image on a 64GB USB3.0 Sandisk USB Stick, but the process stopped after hours of being stuck around 30.4 percent and the computer was unable to boot, leaving me with a persistent verbose message suggesting it couldn’t identify the os, kernel or anything.
I finally tried restoring the state using migration assistant on the very same SSD that had my files missing. This happened successfully and I have all my applications in the applications folder.
But now I have 13GB free (I had 2GB before) and all my application support files, saved states, preferences, caches and customizations are gone.
Basically, it feels like I just got a new macbook with my documents and itunes folder loaded on to it.
How can I get my apps back to the pre-deletion state or is this impossible? Do I have to start from scratch? I thought my Time Machine Backups would restore it to exactly the same state, am I wrong?
Screenshots:
Message was edited by: Arsenenger

Can you simply navigate to your Time Machine backup with the Finder? Treat it like an external hardrive and just look for your old Applications folder. /Applications/
Also, quite a few apps put config and support files in ~/Library/Application\ Support/
So you may be able to get the files from there as well.

Retrieving library from Time Machine

For some reason, Itunes crashed and decided my library was damaged. It then created a new -empy- one.
I'm trying to retrieve my old one. First tried to rename ma latest "ancient Itunes library", but it didn't work, and this one is now nowhere to be found. I then tried to move the .xml file and "import" this new library, it worked but .... it was empty (of course, since it's been created after the new/empy library).
I have everything saved on Time Machine.
Does anyone know how to restore an "old" iTunes Music Library.xml file from Time Machine? Or anyway to restore my library from .... half an hour ago?
thanx a lot.

Thanx.
Still I could not find the ITunes database file. I browsed through the ITunes file in Music and in the ITunes file in Library.
What I finally did is that I reimported all music ITunes could find by itself after moving the ITunes folder from the music section on my desk. Most of my music was found (approx 2 Go are still missing, although they are in my music folder). But .... no playlist !
I discovered by the way that my Time Machine worked in a funny way (not the way it is supposed to) so it doesn't make it easy to find anything really, since I have to use spotlight and can't browse through the usual sections you would normally find in your finder.
Thanx anyway, I'm sure that's pretty sensible and useful.

Delete large file from Time Machine backup drive?

I recently selected to exclude my Aperture.library file from Time Machine, but only after it had done about 8 backups already... the file doesn't exist in the latest folder on my TM hard drive but it is there in previous ones.
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Ewen,
Let me make my self more clear.
Because of the Apple KB article regarding Aperture and Time Macine, that's exactly why i chose to EXCLUDE my aperture.library file from time machine.
Please don't read any negative tone in this, i'm just trying to explain myself.
But hind sight is 20/20, so i was looking for a way to delete the old previous version of the aperture.library that was sitting on my backup time machine drive (useless taking up space)
I apologize for not searching out that KB article, but i didn't think i'd have to do that. I assumed Apple would know how to have Aperture play nice with Time Machine....
Any way all is good. we're all educated now

I have Photoshop Elements 10 on a new Mac, using Yosemite 10.1.1 - PE locks up every time I try to sign in. This software was restored to this computer from Time Machine after a theft of my old Mac. How can I fix this?

I have Photoshop Elements 10 on a new Mac, using Yosemite 10.1.1 - PE locks up every time I try to sign in. This software was restored to this computer from Time Machine after a theft of my old Mac. How can I fix this? It keeps telling me that there are missing files, too. If I upgrade to Elements 12 or beyond, will this fix the problem?

You can't sign in because there is nothing to sign in to. For PSE 10 the only sign in was to photoshop.com, which has been dead and gone for a year and half. Just skip the sign in. Reinstalling will not change this.
PSE 8, 9, 10 Can’t Sign In, Error 404 | Barbara's Sort-of-Tech Blog
PSE is locking up because it's looking interminably for the non-existent photoshop.com server.

Cannot copy files from Time Machine

Hi,
I wanted to trash all my Time Machine Files yesterday but when I tried to empty the trash, my Mac started to count all the files on the trash for so long that I decided to undo that. So, I opened the trash and decided to move back again all my Time Machine back up files into the original disk where they where. My Mac started to count all the files and it did not stopped since then? What can I do to resolve this issue, since my Mac has been counting files since very late last night and it's been doing this ever since: it's been counting for at least one day?
Can I stop the process and do something else, I would not like to damage my disk or something else. I know I should have taken a «reformat» option instead but right now I do not know if I can stop this process or should I let it run for I do not know how long???
Please help!
Thanks
Robert
<Email Edited by Host>

Hi,
After consideration of all this precious time spent, I've decided finally to call at Apple support even if my Apple Care coverage had expired for so many years. The 35$ fee for a month services was largely worth the call and the service I received... So, with the help of a well trained expert, I got the job done very fast et efficiently! Mind you, I had to insist to be in the hand of a good expert before doing anything, this was a "must" in my case...
After explaining my problem to this expert I realized that I was in good hands: he knew what was the problem and he really made my call worth all the money. I agreed to share my screen with him and we started with Terminal.
First:
I emptied the trash by typing the proper command in Terminal. I tried it before but it wasn't working since all my backup files from Time Machine where not on my local disk, they where on another internal disk. With his help, I identified the proper disk and when Terminal executed the command, it was done in no time. Sweet, no more counting! But my files where still on the trash, no one could tell how long this would take to trash everything. I had a zillion files in my Backup from Time Machine!
Second:
So, I asked my expert: "since we don't know how long will this process will take, will reformatting the disk, be better and will this save time? Is it possible since all my files on this disk are in the trash? He said: "Yes it will work even if your files are in the trash". Ok, let's do it! So, I've stopped the process after a few minutes and started Disk Utility. I then identified the volume and hit the "erase" button.
Voilà, the job was done perfectly after 2 minutes, my disk was clean.
Conclusion:
Is it both actions that did the job, I cannot say. But in my case, it worked perfectly. I know, I should have reformat my disk first, it would have save me so much time.
May my mistake serve other users in the futur! If anyone would like the command codes I used in Terminal, feel free to ask.
Live long and prosper Mr. Technician!
Robert M.
<Personal Information Edited By Host>

Retrieving files from Time Machine after updating to Snow Leopard

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