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

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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 to restore files from Time Machine after Clean Install of Mavericks

How to restore files from Time Machine after Clean Install of Mavericks. I know the data is there but seems unaccessable because I may have changed the Computer or Owner name. Is there any way to fix that now?

Hi Linc,
my back-up data is managed by Time Machine; the actual data is on a second internal Hard Drive with a capacity of 1TB - not partitioned. I am using Time Machine and have access to all data backed up since Mavericks Clean Install but not the data prior to this date.
When I open the 1TB drive in Finder I can see a folder "Backups.backupdb/Sigi's Mac Pro/ followed by many folders of backup dates going back to 2010-09-20-103441 and up to 2014-02-07-142414 all followed with folder Macintosh HD. February 7th 2014 was the date of the clean install.
These Backups are followed by backup date folder 2014-02-08-075554 with a subfolder of MacPro-320GB (this is the name I assigned to my Boot Drive during formatting; I suspect I should have assigned the same name as before ie. Macintosh HD) and 2014-02-11 with a subfolder Macintosh HD, these are the ones I get access to by way of Time Machine > Restore.
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.
Is there something that Time Machine knows and prevents access or is it simply a matter of renaming the subfolder 2014-02-08-07554/MacPro-320GB to ........./Macintosh HD?
I like to restore selectively and not everything - It was hard work reinstalling apps that were supposed to be the troublemakers (ref my discussion on Maverick problems) but I now need to get onto data specific to some of these apps as well as other data I may have missed. Long story? Yes and sorry.
Sigi

Restoring files from Time Machine after installing Maverick

I have an older MacBook Pro and while installing Maverick my aged hard drive gave out. I got a new hard drive installed by an authorized Mac dealer and now I'm trying to restore files from Time Machine. I haven't done anything at all yet with Maverick. I followed the Migration Assistant directions and have the backup connected to my laptop. The backup icon appeared on my desktop. I hit continue and followed directions and reached the point where it said "looking for source" and there is a spinning ball. That was an hour ago. Is it just taking a long time to sort through the large volume of material in my Time Machine backup, or is something wrong? What should I be doing, if anything? Thank you for your help.

I have an older MacBook Pro and while installing Maverick my aged hard drive gave out. I got a new hard drive installed by an authorized Mac dealer and now I'm trying to restore files from Time Machine. I haven't done anything at all yet with Maverick. I followed the Migration Assistant directions and have the backup connected to my laptop. The backup icon appeared on my desktop. I hit continue and followed directions and reached the point where it said "looking for source" and there is a spinning ball. That was an hour ago. Is it just taking a long time to sort through the large volume of material in my Time Machine backup, or is something wrong? What should I be doing, if anything? Thank you for your help.

Restore files from time machine after new install

In my office one of my iMac's suffered a complete system crash. I am reinstalling OS X Lion as I write this post. The iMac was backed up to an external hard drive using time machine. After the new install of Lion how do I grab my user files from the machine backup?
I appreciate in advance your help.

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.
Restore will take a while, but when done just restart.

Why can't I restore a file from Time Machine?

I purchased a new Macbook Pro a month ago. I migrated all my stuff from my previous Macbook that was running Maverick. All went well. However, I was looking for a particular file. Apparently I had removed it from my old Mac at some point, but I found it in Time Machine. My backups are on an external hard drive. Again, I can see the file in Time Machine, but I can't seem to do anything with it.
To that end, I see two files: one has shows the file size, and the other (same name, file type, etc...) says "Calculating size"...forever.
Thoughts? Suggestions?

Launch the Console application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad and start typing the name.
The title of the Console window should be All Messages. If it isn't, select
SYSTEM LOG QUERIES ▹ All Messages
from the log list on the left. If you don't see that list, select
View ▹ Show Log List
from the menu bar at the top of the screen.
Click the Clear Display icon in the toolbar. Then try the restore operation again. Select any messages that appear in the Console window. Copy them to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. Paste into a reply to this message by pressing command-V.
The log contains a vast amount of information, almost all of which is irrelevant to solving any particular problem. When posting a log extract, be selective. A few dozen lines are almost always more than enough.
Please don't indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into this discussion.
Please don't post screenshots of log messages—post the text.
Some private information, such as your name or email address, may appear in the log. Anonymize before posting.

I cant restore raw files from time machine. HELP!?

I have lost all my personal photos, but knew I had a backup through time mahine. however time machine won't allow me to restore any folders that contain RAW files. Please HELP!

Were these RAW files in an iPhoto Library or just a folder on the hard drive. For problem with Restoring from Time Machine see this website: Time Machine - Troubleshooting
OT

Restoring individual files from time machine.

hi Apple store today reinstalled OS as system was not operating well. Was told I could restore emails, files etc from time machine.
So far all I,ve been able to fnd is some jpg,
How do i reinstate email iphoto and itunes individually
if i just reinstal the whole image will end up with the same problem
thanks in advance

you can do it but it has to be done in two steps. first, make a TM backup. to speed things up just choose 'backup now" from the TM menu. next, do a full system restore by booting from the leopard install dvd. once the system is restored log out of your current account and log into another admin account. create one using system preferences->accounts. then go to the folder /users at the top level of the drive and restore the home directory of your main user from the most recent TM backup available. then log into your main account and all your recent data will be there.

Restoring selected files from Time Machine

I have a total of 160Gb on my white MacBook. I've hit the point now where the hard disk is almost full and causing me grief. Although I can go through my hard disk and selective delete all of the music files, applications, photos, videos, etc that I no longer want to retain I was considering the following sequence of steps:
performing a full back-up to Time Machine
performing a full Mac OSX reinstallation
after my OSX reinstall has completed, selectively restoring the files (mainly music and photos) that I want.
I was hoping the strategy above might be faster than trawling through each directory and deleting the files that I don't want.
I've read this post: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2126294 and the consensus recommended against executing this type of strategy. However, I also note that the facts in this discussion thread related to a selective restoration of files after an upgrade of Operating Systems (Leopard to Snow Leopard). I'm not doing that. I'm on Leopard and will remain so.
Are there any pitfalls or traps that I ought to be aware of before committing to a reinstallation? The though of manually deleting the files I no longer need is a total D.R.A.G.

Kevin le Bevin wrote:
I have a total of 160Gb on my white MacBook. I've hit the point now where the hard disk is almost full and causing me grief. Although I can go through my hard disk and selective delete all of the music files, applications, photos, videos, etc that I no longer want to retain I was considering the following sequence of steps:
performing a full back-up to Time Machine
performing a full Mac OSX reinstallation
after my OSX reinstall has completed, selectively restoring the files (mainly music and photos) that I want.
That may work fairly well with most types of data -- data that's in separate files.
If your photos are in iPhoto, it will be very hard to find the ones you want, but you can use the procedure in the gray box at the bottom of Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #15.
Assuming your music is in iTunes, it may be difficult to find the ones you want.
If you have 3rd-party apps, there's a problem. You can restore individual "simple" apps (that were just dropped into your Applications folder), and if you work at it, the associated preferences files (in ~/Library/Preferences). But "complex" apps, that came with their own installers, won't work properly, if at all, because they have other files (and perhaps "helper" apps) in other places. Those will have to be reinstalled from the original discs.
Or, use Migration Assistant to transfer all the apps (and exclude everything else). See Using Migration Assistant on Snow Leopard or Leopard.

Restoring backup files from Time Machine without system preference/Library files

Hi all. I recently ran into some trouble with my MBP and had the Apple store do a erase/install for me. At the time when I got my laptop back, I was told it would be best if I transferred my files including applications the drag and drop way to avoid restoring library/system files that could've been the cause of the problem in the first place. I'm currently still at the setup assistant stage and I'm really unsure of what to do to be honest because I'm under the impression that my application settings would pretty much be gone if I did the drag and drop method.
I read that setup assistant transfers only files that you want but I also read something from user Pondini that the Library files are automatically restored even if I unchecked everything. Which is problematic since that's what I want to avoid in the first place. If possible can anyone recommend a better option for my dilemma? I've read in one of the forum boards that dragging and dropping files can also cause some problems with how applications will work and I really don't want to have to deal with that after the trouble I'm going through with this. Is there a way to just restore Applications and the user folder (desktop, documents, downloads, etc) without including the library system files and folders through setup assistant?
Or do I really have to deal with dragging and dropping files instead? Would you recommend doing the stars wars method of Time Machine and picking only the files I want? Would that be most advisable?
Also, it would be really helpful if anyone can explain to me what the "other files and folders" mean exactly. Thanks very much!

Well what happened was my laptop ran into 2 kernel panics within 2 days (I posted a question here: https://discussions.apple.com/message/25605663#25605663). Which sent ME into a panic. I couldn't trust myself to go any further so I went to the Apple store who then helped did an erase/install for me because they suspect it could be a software issue (maybe it was missing codes or something) and suggested that it would be best for me to drag/drop restore my stuff manually. I'm not very keen on a full system restore either because I know there are some system files which I'd rather not have sticking around (like com.rims which are super stubborn to get rid of) and which could even have been the source of my trouble right now.
I was reading through every single page of Pondini's articles and I'm couldn't find anything which said I could just restore the apps in my apps folder without transferring anything else (ie. the library folder in the macintosh hd folder) since i'm assuming anything from the library folder of the user would be obsolete if I choose not to restore those files using setup assistant. But I'm more reluctant about not using setup assistant for restoring my apps because I don't know how bad it will turn out. Not to mention I won't know if they would restore system root files that should've been long gone since I uninstalled them.

Restore iTunes library from Time Machine, after full hard drive wipe

I had to do a full hard drive wipe on my MBP running 10.6.6, so I made a full Time Machine backup before hand. I reinstalled os x (10.6.3) and used migration assistant to restore my files from the Time Machine backup.
Most of this process has been painless, however, when I open iTunes it's empty. I have all the music files, iTunes Library.itdb, iTunes Library Extras.itdb and iTunes Library Genius.itdb. Is there a way to restore my previous iTunes library with these files? I feel like this should be a pretty basic thing to do but I haven't found much/any documentation of it online. Any help would be much appreciated.

Take the files that you list and the iTunes music folder from the TM b/u and drag them to the iTunes folder. To put it in simpler terms - drag the iTunes folder from the TM to the same location on the internal HD.
By default the path should be HD>User>Your Account>Music>iTunes(your iTunes files are here)>iTunes Music (your music files are here)
MJ

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

Restore mountain lion from Time Machine after HD replacement?

Which key sequence do I use to completely restore a time machine backup to my iMac after HD went bad and was replaced at Apple store?
Tried holding down shift while powering on but comes up with galaxy desktop. I am afraid that I may overwrite my TM restore with ALL my data on it. thx

Be sure the Time Machine backup drive is connected. Restart the computer and immediately upon hearing the chime press and hold down the OPTION button until the boot manager screen appears. Hopefully, you will see a Recovery HD volume appear. Select it then click on the upward pointing arrow button below the icon. This should boot the invisible Recovery HD volume stored on your Time Machine backup.
Drive Preparation for Lion/Mountain Lion
1. Select Disk Utility from the main menu and click on the Continue button.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing. SMART info will not be reported on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Security button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.
7. After formatting is done quit DU and return to the main menu. Select Restore from Time Machine Backup and click on the Continue button.

Time Machine question re: full system restore

OK I am pretty sure this in the FAQ but the answer still isn't overly clear to me so I'm going to ask anyway...apologies in advance.
I recently found out that my iMac hard drive is failing, I have an appointment with the Genius Bar in two days to see what is wrong and get it fixed.
In the meantime, I am currently backing up my hard drive using Time Machine but I am hearing conflicting reports as to whether or not I can do a full restore from Time Machine should my iMac have it's hard drive or other components replaced.
So...question: Can I directly restore my iMac (with a possible new hard drive or other components) from Time Machine? If not, how can I do it.
I am most worried about my photos in iPhoto as my wife will murder me if I lose our wedding and honeymoon photos.

LSC wrote:
OK I am pretty sure this in the FAQ but the answer still isn't overly clear to me so I'm going to ask anyway...apologies in advance.
I recently found out that my iMac hard drive is failing, I have an appointment with the Genius Bar in two days to see what is wrong and get it fixed.
In the meantime, I am currently backing up my hard drive using Time Machine but I am hearing conflicting reports as to whether or not I can do a full restore from Time Machine should my iMac have it's hard drive or other components replaced.
So...question: Can I directly restore my iMac (with a possible new hard drive or other components) from Time Machine?
yes, you can. you can do it using full system restore utility on the leopard install DVD. there are no ifs or buts about it. where is that "conflicting info" coming from?
If not, how can I do it.
I am most worried about my photos in iPhoto as my wife will murder me if I lose our wedding and honeymoon photos.

Restoring ALL files from Time Machine

I replaced my hdd in my iMac and after installing my OS I used the Migration app to restore my files, settings and apps. That went pretty good until I went to look for something through Time Machine that was prior to my new install. Time machine would only go back to the date of my new install. All the other windows behind that date were black and not accessible. Did I do something wrong and is there a way I can fix it?

First make sure you have read & write access to the folder you're trying to restore to. You should be able to see its contents in the Finder, and to move files in and out of it.
This is an exception to the rule that you should never make any changes to backup data. I've tested this procedure in OS X 10.8 only. It should work with later versions, but I don't know whether it works in earlier versions. Use this procedure only for files that were backed up from your home folder, or a folder on another volume created by you, and would normally be writable by you. Do not touch backups of system or application files.
In the Finder (not in the time-travel view), navigate to the backup volume, then to the folder named "Backups.backupdb", and then to the snapshot you want to restore from. The snapshots are folders labeled with the date when they were created. Inside each of those folders is a file hierarchy like the one on the volume that was backed up. Descend through the hierarchy until you come to a folder named "Users," and inside that, a folder with your user name. The procedure will be different if you're trying to restore files on another volume.
Select the folder and open the Info dialog (command-I). Click the padlock icon in the lower right corner of the window and authenticate. In the Sharing & Permissions section, give your account Read & Write access. You may have to close the dialog and repeat this step in order for the change to show up. Then click the gear icon and select Apply to Enclosed Items from the popup menu.
Try the restore operation again, in the time-travel interface.

Ho do i restore my files from time machine after a full system restore?

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