Can I restore imac to earlier time if I never set up time machine?

I was downloading files for Photoshop cs6. Long story short...photos are not stored where they were stored prior to the download. I need to reset the imac to a point before that. I did not have Time Machine set up. Thanks

If the downloads are just going to a different location, you can search in Spotlight to find the file location. You can also select to download again and see where it is defaulting to save the files.

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HT201250 Can I restore photo files from Time Machine without the use of an external drive? I'm trying to restore lost photo files and I see them listed in Time Machine (without use of an external drive), but when I try to restore I get a error code 36.

Can I restore photo files from Time Machine without the use of an external drive? While I was transferring photos back and forth from a thumb drive something went haywire and my IPhoto was wiped clean! When I click on Time Machine I see all the dated pages (without an external storage drive connected), go back to a date where all my photo files are there, click "restore", and I get the message: "The Finder can't complete the operation because some data in file cant be read or written (error code - 36)"

Thanks so much Terence. I tried some of the fixes from that page, but then discovered the suggestion to compress the Time Machine Back up of the original library and transfer it as a zip back to my computer as detailed here:
http://pondini.org/TM/E9.html
That worked like a charm. I really appreciate it.

How can I restore files from a time machine back-up of my iMac to an EXTERNAL hard drive connected to MacBook Pro. Using Migrat

I would like to restore files from a time machine back-up of my iMac to an EXTERNAL hard drive connected to MacBook Pro. When I tried using Migration Assistant it only gives me my internal hard drive as an option to restore to. The internal hard drive on my macbook isnt large enough to store the files.

Welcome to Apple Support Communities
OS X can only restore data to the drive where Time Machine backed up files from.
If you want to restore files from the Time Machine backup onto an external drive, your only option is to access to the Time Machine drive manually (open a Finder window and choose your Time Machine drive in the Finder sidebar), navigate through its folders and copy the files you want to the external drive

I have yosemite on my iMac.Can i restore to an earlier time from my external hard drive when i had Mavericks installed?

Hi all. I have Yosemite on my iMac. Can i restore via my external hard drive to an earlier time when i had Mavericks on my iMac? If i can which operating system will i end up with? I would like to do this because i prefer Mavericks to Yosemite. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

I've never seen that problem, but others have reported it. Maybe you should search for those other topics. You might try the following:
Try these in order testing your system after each to see if it's back to normal:
1. a. Resetting your Mac's PRAM and NVRAM
    b. Intel-based Macs: Resetting the System Management Controller (SMC)
2. Restart the computer in Safe Mode, then restart again, normally. If this doesn't help, then:
Boot to the Recovery HD: Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the Utilities menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
3. Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions: Upon startup select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu. Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions as follows.
When the recovery menu appears select Disk Utility. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the main menu. Select Restart from the Apple menu.
4. Reinstall Yosemite: Reboot from the Recovery HD. Select Reinstall OS X from the Utilities menu, and click on the Continue button.
    Then download and install the OS X Yosemite 10.10.3 Combo Update.
Note: You will need an active Internet connection. I suggest using Ethernet if possible
            because it is three times faster than wireless.
5. Reinstall Yosemite from Scratch:
Be sure you backup your files to an external drive or second internal drive because the following procedure will remove everything from the hard drive.
    How to Clean Install OS X Yosemite.
    Then download and install the OS X Yosemite 10.10.3 Combo Update.
Note: You will need an active Internet connection. I suggest using Ethernet if possible
            because it is three times faster than wireless.

Can't restore iPhoto Library from Time Machine. Faults halfway through.

POSTED EARLIER ON iPHOTO 9 DISCUSSION-recommended checking here.
My wife is running a Mac Mini with iPhoto 9. She has let her hard drive space drop to about 4gigs. This morning, she opened iPhoto and nothing came up. I looked at some of the posts here and did the following 1) ran disk utility to repair permissions 2) removed enough files to get her available hard drive space above 10gigs. Mostly by moving to her external hard drive. 3) Based on what I was reading, I copied her iPhoto library and related files to a folder on her external drive. I then deleted the iPhoto library file itself. 4) I went into TimeMachine and ran it back to the last backup yesterday and asked it to Restore that file.
The process went forward smoothly until it hit about 5.5gigs of the 46.5gig file. At that point it stopped and a dialogue box said "the operation can't be completed because you don't have permission to access iPhoto library". I ran it again---essentially it fails after restoring the thumbnails. I checked permissions for iPhoto and it shows 'read and write' as the settings.
Any suggestions? Is using Time Machine for this purpose not workable? Thanks in advance for your help.

Disk utility ran through the REPAIR disk function on the Time Machine drive and came back good. I then ran the VERIFY disk function on the Main disk and it also came back good. I was not offered a REPAIR disk option for the Main Disk.
No errors. Any other suggestions?

Can I restore Office 2004 from Time machine backup

Hi Guys,
I have managed to delete office 2004 when I was trying to install office 2008 using a friend's copy. Office 2008 will not work for me as it needs online registration.
I no longer have the office 2004 install disk. Is it possible to re-install office 2004 from my time machine backup. I can see it is available in the backup from before yesterday but not sure if I try to restore what will happen.
Any advice appreciated.
Thanks,
Paul

Hi PaulieHK,
Open Finder on you original view desktop.
No go to Application folder and select the Office 2004.
NOW, select the Time Machine icon in the dock and it will bring you back in history.
You can go back before you tried to install Office 2008.
Select IN Time Machine the application Office 2004 and click on PUT BACK.
Time machine will now put back the situation as it was before the installing Office 2008.
When you see your original desktop again try to open Office 2004.
Good luck ...
Dimaxum

Can't restore iphoto library from time machine

I'm running iphoto 8 on 10.6.8. The iphoto library disappeared and I've tried numerous ways to restore it. Rebuilding the library didn't work. Neither did library manager's rebuild function. When I attempt to restore directly from time machine I get a permissions error. I tried to work around that by creating a disk image and restoring the time machine back up to that. It copies some of it, but then gives me an error 36.
"The Finder can’t complete the operation because some data in “iPhoto Library” can’t be read or written.
(Error code -36)"
It did transfer enough data before quitting so that I could get my low res photos from the "data" folder, but I can not get to the originals folder.
Is there any other way to get that folder out of the time machine back up directly. The library on time machine shows over 20 gigs of data, but I can't seem to get to it.
I did upgrade to snow leopard a few months ago.
I appreciate any and all help. :-) shaeri

Thanks so much Terence. I tried some of the fixes from that page, but then discovered the suggestion to compress the Time Machine Back up of the original library and transfer it as a zip back to my computer as detailed here:
http://pondini.org/TM/E9.html
That worked like a charm. I really appreciate it.

How can I restore my old iTunes Time Machine backup after upgrading to Mavericks?

I previously had Snow Leopard, and am wondering how I can simply restore ONLY my iTunes library from my Time Machine backup, last made only a few days ago when I had Snow Leopard. However, I seem to be unable to access anything backed up before I installed Mavericks. Any help would be great, because I'd hate to have to struggle to locate 160GB of music manually.
Many thanks!

Your choice really. Either way will work. Retaining the older backups gives you a way to restore older files. When I upgrade from 10.8 to 10.9, the backups continued without errors. Depending on what you upgraded from, in 10.8/9 you have the option to backup to 2 separate drives thus giving you some protection in case one drive fails. You can either copy the old backup to a new drive (Disk Utility/Restore seems to work best) or start a new one.

Can I restore from backup of time machine of Mountain Lion on a fresh install Older Snow Lepord

Currently I have OS X 10.8.5 on my macbook pro.
I have done much of the recovery tricks stated on variour threads. SO as apple support suggested I even tried the internet restore of the OS.
After a long wait the installable started and I selected the option to reinstall the OS. But it prompted back that that the version which I have installed on the the macbook pro was the latest and hence can't be replaced. So the option to restore from my time machine and I was able to work on the mac for sometime. I thought the issue was resolved, but it doesn;t seems so.
So will it be wise to completely wipe out the OS and reinstall from scratch. I have snow lepord OS DVD which originally came with the mac.
So if I install from scratch snow lepord, will I be able to restore files which were backed up on OS X Lion (current OS) ? Kindly advice.

I got a discussion thread here which suggests I can't
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3214393?start=0&tstart=0
Please help ...

HT201250 Can I restore applications from my Time Machine to a new MBP?

My old 15" MBP died and I now have a new 13" MBP that I want to restore all of my data to from my Time Machine. Can I also restore all of the applications as well?

Yes; you'll be given the option to migrate from it when setting up the new computer.
(64494)

Can't restore Junk Mail using Time Machine

As I was executing the command "delete junk mail" I noticed some files in there that I never saw, and then they disappeared. I tried restoring them using Time Machine but the Junk Mail folder is greyed out. All the other folders are recoverable, but not Junk. Can anybody help?

I see the same thing - junk mailboxes are grayed out in TM. However, the actual mailbox folders in finder are backed up. in finder go to homedirectory/library/mail and look for junk mailbox folders inside your account folders. start TM while in there and recover the messages you need.

I am thinking up buying a new 15in MBP. What can be restored from my current Time Machine Back up?

This will be my second MBP, so first time to try migrating.
Can Time Machine restore software like SEE Finance, Microsoft Office, Norton, Adobe Lightroom from my current MBP? Or does it just migrate data.
How do I migrate my iTunes over?
Hope you can advise me.
Thanks

Hello,
Sorry for the trouble. I am Vineeth and I am from the Norton Support team.
It is easy to install your Norton product on your new MBP. You can follow the steps in this support article to download and install the Norton product: http://www.Norton.com/install
Let me know if you need further help!
Thanks!
Vineeth
Norton Support

I have reinstalled my OS without time machine (using the disc). I want to restore some pictures in the iPhotos which are already in the time machine i was using previously. How can I restore iPhoto from previous time machine?

My mac book was incredibly slow. When I went to Mac store, they asked me to reinstall the OS with CD and not with the time machine. I reinstalled the operating system. But when I opened the applications, all those started as fresh applications as usual. I have the backup of all other data in another hard disc. But unfortunately, I forgot to copy the photos before reinstallation. I have those photos in my time machine back up. But when I opened time machine, it started like a fresh (very new) time machine and it started backing up my present OS (the reinstalled one). I cannot open the previous time machine, which is in the same hard drive. I wish to open the previous time machine to get the photos which are backed up previuosly. When opened the time machine disc (manually by clicking the icon), i can see all the thigs which I had previously in my macbook. But unfortunately, i cannot access those through time machine! Can anybody help me please?

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Can SL restore from a Lion Time Machine backup?

I want to downgrade from Lion to SL. If I do a fresh install of SL will it be able to read my Lion Time Machine backup to restore my applications and data?

To clarify any perceived inconsistency between my advice and that of sig's, my presumption was that you were going to do a complete restore from Time Machine. If that's not the case, sig's advice is important.

I accidentally renamed all the file names on every single one of my 24000 photos in aperture using batch change ( keywords, metadata etc) Can I undo this action or will I need to restore from an earlier time machine/capsule backup?

Undoing a batch metadata filename change in Aperture3?

You're welcome.
A second copy of the iPhoto library on a second drive is always good. I once lost my backup drive and the system drive at the same time, because a lightning caused a power surge that killed both my macs system drive and the connected backup drive. I was lucky to have a bootable clone of the system drive as a second backup.
I like this version of the quote you cited:
A little learning is a dangerous thing;
drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:
there shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
and drinking largely sobers us again.

Can I restore imac to earlier time if I never set up time machine?

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