Copying data from a Time Capsule to a different Mac

Question

After having searched the forums for quite a while and still not finding the correct answer, I decided to share my solution for this very specific scenario: I have a Time Machine backup onto a Time Capsule from a Mac. Let's call it Macintosh A. So, for whatever reason, Macintosh A is out of commission—perhaps it's in the shop, or it experienced a hardware failure, whatever—and you want to get data from the backup onto another Mac, we'll call it Mac B. Here's how. First off, these instructions assume a few things:
You know how to navigate files and folders on the Mac
You are running OS X Mavericks (the procedure will be similar in other versions of Mac OS but these specific instructions are for Mavericks)
You are on the same Wi-Fi or ethernet network as the Time Capsule
You are viewing files and folders in column mode (wherever I say click on a folder, it translates to double click if you are in icon or list mode—if you're using cover flow, stop and change to one of the other actually useful view modes)
You know the device password to your Time Capsule (this is usually different than your Wi-Fi password)
Wherever you see Macintosh A in the instructions, substitute your backed up computer's name (I know, but this trips up a surprising number of people...)
Make sure that when you set up the Time Capsule via Airport Utility, you tick "Enable file sharing" (see the Disks tab in the Airport Utility configuration window). Next, while in the Finder, select "Go: Connect to Server..." and in the subsequent dialogue box, click on "Browse". This will open a Finder window listing the available volumes. Click Network and your Time Capsule should appear as one of the options. Click on it and you'll come to a connect dialogue. Click on the "Connect As..." button and it will open a password dialogue box (this may take a bit of time, especially if you are connecting over Wi-Fi). Enter your Time Capsule password and click "Connect". Click on the Data folder and you will come to something called a Sparse Bundle. It will have a name something like this: "Macintosh A.sparsebundle". This is simply a type of volume that you can connect to from your Mac. Double click on it. Depending on how you have configured your Finder, your Time Machine Backups icon may show up on the Desktop or simply in the Finder window Sidebar under "DEVICES". Once you locate this, navigate to the "Macintosh A" folder and you will see a series of folders named by date. Now you can navigate through those folders to find the specific files that you want to recover. Once you locate those files, simply copy them to your Mac (Mac B, in this example).
The abstruse nature of the Time Machine and Time Capsule backup system is daunting. And let's not forget that when you are trying to restore files, it's often because there is some sort of computer failure and this is stressful enough without having clear cut instructions on how to restore files. And often enough, people don't want to restore their entire system—they may just want to access certain files. This is for them.
Good luck and happy restoring!
Albeeboy

Answer 1

Take a look at Migration Assistant, in the /Applications/Utilities folder.  You can use a Time Machine backup to restore your data files.