Files missing in Time Machine

Yesterday I had to refresh some local folders on my MBP from a version control system that my company maintains. Before doing so I had copied my working copies to another folder then after the refresh copied the files I had been working on back to the original folder. I then deleted the second folder, thinking I no longer needed it. This morning I realized that there were several image files that I forgot to copy to the original folder from the second folder. I figured, "no problem, I've been using Time Machine since I switched to the MBP from a hated Windows PC in December." I opened Time Machine and navigated to several backups from prior to yesterday but those files are nowhere to be found. Do I just not understand how Time Machine works or is there a problem here? There are other image files in the folder, just not the ones that are missing. It appears as if when the files were deleted by the version control refresh yesterday it went back and deleted them from TM, which obviously makes no sense.

I have a similar experience:
Nearly the same thing happened to me, too.
iMac 27" mid 2011, OSX 10.9.1., external HDD directly connected via Firewire and exclusively used for TimeMachine.
Came to work on monday, booted up the iMac, computer got stuck at the twirling colourful beach ball.
I booted the recovery mode and choose the last backup from late friday.
It worked, but a number of my apps don't remember that they are licensed and some preferences are forgotten.
But that is just inconvenient. I discovered that some files in folders on the desktop are missing. And the last backup in my TimeMachine with these files is more than 1 month old! Everything newer is missing in these folders!
And I am very sure that I did not delete these files because guess what I was working on the last workday before this incident...
I am almost anxious to check all my data - who knows what else is missing!
I checked the exclude list in the system preferences panel and in the plist-file - no, my desktop is not excluded.
Any news on the buggy TimeMachine?

Similar Messages

Files Missing From Time Machine Backup

I had a system crash and I'm trying to move the files from my time machine backup onto my new computer.
The problem is that many of my files, which I know where on my desktop in folder at the time of the backups, seem to be missing. I can find the folder, but about three quarters of the files from it are gone. The ones that are in it appear to be mostly newer files that I had created not long before the last backups and the crash. As far as I go back, the files seem to be missing.
Anyone know what might be going on?
Does it have to do with which user I'm logged in as? Would that change what files I can see?
Any suggestions?
Thanks.

Thanks for the comment. I did use the Migration Asst. to move her data and most did move, but key information, like the Safari Bookmarks, the addresses in the Address Book, and every file in the Documents folder were all missing. I finally called Apple and the tech there solved the problem. The source of the problem is that when she registered the new Mac mini, she used a slightly different User name, which then made it impossible for the new Mini to communicate with the external Backup data. The tech walked me through a multiple step process that involved adding a suffix to the original user name and so on, which has made available all the original data on the new mini.
This is the second time in the last few years that a change in the administrator user name has created an enormous problem. While Apple notes that this user name is important, there should be a more thorough explanation of how it functions and the serious consequences that can occur if is not husbanded properly.

Files missing after Time Machine backup

I ran Time Machine on my iMac yesterday and all seemed to have gone well with the backup to an external drive. However, when I wanted to open a file from the iMac hard drive, there were several folders missing. I restarted the iMac and still folders are missing. The folders are also missing from yesterday's TM backup but they were certainly on the hard drive when the back up was made. Where did the folders go?

I have this same problem. I only noticed it because of a dead link in my Finder sidebar. I went to restore the files with TM (first time having to restore), and lo and behold, the file was not there at all in the last few months, when I know I used it as little 8 days ago.

Backup Files Missing on Time Machine

After reformatting the hard drive on one of my macbooks the backup files seem to have vanished from my Time Machine. After reinstalling Lion on the macbook I decided not to restore from a backup as I believed I could restore selected files. The backup files were present prior to the formatting of the Macintosh Hard Drive as are the backup files for my two other macbooks and imac.
The reformatted imac is now connected to the Time Machine but the backup files seemed to have disappeared prior to time machine being turned back on for this machine.
To me this makes absolutely no sense and I hope someone can assist, as what's happened just doesn't seem logical.
I appologise in advance if I haven't provided enough information.

I too have this exact same problem. I recently replaced my hard drive and before doing so, did an entire system back up. When i went to restore the files onto the new hard drive there doesn't seem to be any files to back up from my time machine. Nothing!!! Pls can someone help?????

Files missing on Time Machine backup

Here is a strange one.
On my Intel MacBook, I am running 10.5.4.
I ordered an Iomega UltraMax External Hard Drive (500 GB, USB+FW) to
use as a time machine. Reviews on it were good; one person stated that
it may be a good idea to reformat the new drive, even though it
already came HFS+ formatted.
The drive came and I used the FW cable to hook up. Reformatted the
drive as HFS+ Extended & Journaled.
Set it up as the Time Machine Drive and did not add any folders to not
copy in the setup.
Clicked "Backup Now".
After it finished, I noticed that about 60 out of 66 GB copied. Some Folders were empty: Applications, Picture, Documents,... (Checked via TM & via Finder).
I took changed the Time Machine disk to none. I could not eject it (In
use) unless I did a restart.
I reformatted it. Same thing.
Once more, but using USB instead of FW. (Silly, but I had no other
ideas). Same thing. Subsequent TM backups did not correct it.
I don't suspect the drive because of the consistency of the problem. A
scan of this and another forum did not reveal anything similar.
Any ideas?
TIA,
Paul

I too have this exact same problem. I recently replaced my hard drive and before doing so, did an entire system back up. When i went to restore the files onto the new hard drive there doesn't seem to be any files to back up from my time machine. Nothing!!! Pls can someone help?????

"On My Mac" folders missing after Time Machine Restore

Restored Mail from Time Machine but all the "On My Mac" folders missing??? The folders just do not appear to be on the Time Machine. Are they stored somewhere else than the Smart Folders and E Mail folders?

On line recovery after Erase as I wanted to clear all the accumulated junk from my full HDD. I did a backup on my Time Machine first but wanted to just restore the needed items and not all the accumulated junk so I rejected the full restore from Time Machine option during the restore process. Now I cannot access Time Machine in the normal way all the backups before today are not accessible.
With Apple Support help I managed to access the backup files on the time machine but we have been unable to find the On My Mac mailbox and all the folders it contains. They said they would call me back with a solution but nothing so far.
Thanks for your help

How to get my files back from time machine on a new computer

My laptop has been stolen so i bought a new one.
I would like to keep the clean install but also i would like to restore my files from my time machine (on a time capsule)
How can i do that ?

After you do a clean install, when you first boot up, Setup Assistant will open and you can restore everything from Time Machine.
Set up a New Mac
Migration Assistant/Set Up Assistant - Mavericks

How do I access my back up files from the time machine if my computer was stolen?

Hi, how do I access my back up files from the time machine if my mac book pro was stolen? I have a mac book air and mac too. But not sure how I can get back all the files from the stolen computer from my time capsule

On the Mac Book Air or other Mac that you have, use Migration Assistant to transfer files from the Time Machine backups of the Mac that was taken.
Macintosh HD > Applications > Utilities > Migration Assistant

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 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 accidentally deleted my media files from iTunes and Trash when I was trying to move the files to an external hard drive. Is there a way to restore the media files from a Time Machine backup or from iTunes Match? What are the steps to do this?

I accidentally deleted my media files from iTunes and Trash when I was trying to move the files to an external hard drive. Is there a way to restore the media files from a Time Machine backup or from iTunes Match? What are the steps to do this?

If you have been backing up on Timemachine.
All you need to do is enter time machine... Then the rest is obvious.
Find the iTunes folder and hit 'Restor'.
If not the only way to get all your iTunes music back is to enter iTunes Store.
On the right hand side you should see 'Purchased'.
Click 'purchased' and there you have it.

I'd like to go back to Maverick but i miss a Time machine save

Hi everyone.
Here are my 2 questions:
- First, I'd like to go back to Maverick but i miss a Time machine save. Is it possible or it would be too complicated? Complicated is another word that i'd never, ever, imagine to use with an Apple product.
- Second, how can i ask for a refund? I payed much for a high level of service and this is not even a good service
It has been a while since i wrote something in English so sorry for any errors, i'll try to fix them soon.
Thanks for the help.
<Edited By Host>

Ugo Tuninetti wrote:
- Second, how can i ask for a refund? I payed much for a high level of service and this is not even a good service but a piece of trickery
I'm sure Apple will be happy to refund the purchase price for Yosemite in full...

Restore files from last Time Machine backup after HD erase and install

I just had to do an "erase and install" ... trying to restore files from my last Time Machine backup but after completing the Airport Utility setup / configure steps, it says "waiting to restart" for a few minutes and then says it cannot find TIme Capsule after restart (though TC never restarted). I'm pretty desperate to get my files back as it's Sunday night and my business needs to be up and running by morning. Any help would be greatly appreciated ... even if it's saying I need to take TC into a Mac store to have them retrieve my files.

While in Time Machine, press the key combination shift-command-C. The front window will show all mounted volumes. All snapshots should now be accessible. Select the one you want and navigate to the files you want to restore.

I just received my new Mac Mini and want to migrate files from my Time Machine. I assume the old OS is on Time machine and I don't want it to supersede the new Yosemite OS. Do I have to Do anything special?

I just received my new Mac Mini and want to migrate files from my Time Machine. I assume the old OS is on Time machine and I don't want it to supersede the new Yosemite OS. Do I have to Do anything special?

Using Migrations Assistant will only move the data and other things over, it will not bring over a previous version of the Os since the 2014 model can run anything earlier than Yosemite.

File Vault and Time Machine

Hi, I am new mac users, and I need to know how to secure my time machine drive so if you plug in to other mac should ask for password, by googling some info, I found some trick to set our mac with file vault, so all user data will be encrypted.
but after my imac sets file vault, time machine only works for shared folders, and not realtime backup my main data and system, it inly backup when I log out or shut down my mac.
so I assume my backup data from my time machine will not work for restoring file as normal time machine backup
any solution for this? thanks

Time Machine and File Vault aren't a particularly good combination.
See #25 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), for details and some possible alternatives.

Files missing in Time Machine

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for