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

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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 to bring my files back from time machine

I just got a new hard drive as the old one broke down .. I installed the snow leopard and then the Lion as i was running before ....
How can i restore the computer from time machine back ups ? i have lots of data in time machine that needs to came back !

To be clear, the Time Machine drive has all your up-to-date data and has OS X Lion on it? Your iMac currently has a new drive with Snow Leopard on it? If so, yes Lion and all your data will end up back on the iMac.
The best instructions, with images to guide you, are Pondini's from point
b) To use an install disk in this link: http://pondini.org/TM/14.html

How do i get my contacts back from time machine?

Today i restored my macbook pro and backed it up on an external disk (My passport for mac). Now i'm putting some files back on to my mac and put most of the stuff i wanted got back on, but i cant find the way how to get my contacts back.

Bring the Contacts or Address Book window forward, then enter Time Machine and scroll back to a snapshot that includes the contacts you want to restore. Select the contacts and click the Restore button in the lower right corner of the screen.

Getting My desktop back from time machine

I reformatted from mountain lion back to snow leopard. Now I'm at the point to restore from backup in time machine. What do I select from time machine to get a full restore including my DESKTOP! Ive done this twice now. I select Mac Hd. I select User. And all I get is 200 hundred more GB's used and no desktop. Sorry to yell but I'm a little frustrated ! Bill

To be clear, the Time Machine drive has all your up-to-date data and has OS X Lion on it? Your iMac currently has a new drive with Snow Leopard on it? If so, yes Lion and all your data will end up back on the iMac.
The best instructions, with images to guide you, are Pondini's from point
b) To use an install disk in this link: http://pondini.org/TM/14.html

I performed a "Clean" Install of Lion. How do I get my keychain back from Time Machine?

I erased my hard drive and installed Lion. I did do regular back ups to a USB hard drive. I can see all the old files and applications on my backup drive. How do I get the back up keychain passwords into my newly created Lion keychain?

Hold down the option key and select Go > Library from the Finder menu bar. That's your home Library. With that Finder window open, try to enter Time Machine. If you can, navigate to a snapshot of the Keychains folder and restore it. You may have to hold down the option key and select "Browse other Time Machine Disks" from the Time Machine menu.

How do I restore iCloud mailboxes from Time Machine without losing new mail?

This morning when I opened my laptop and checked my email, Apple Mail decided to flag every single email in my three separate Apple-related accounts ([email protected],[email protected], and [email protected])—some 14,500+ emails total. None of the emails in my comcast or yahoo accounts were affected. Of course, each of the three accounts is set to download copies to my laptop as well as keep them on the server, so now all of those emails are flagged across the board—on my iMac, my iPhone, my iPad mini as well as my laptop. Yay. Since some of the emails were actually flagged intentionally by me over time, I don't want to just unflag everything or I'll lose my flags as well as the ones spontaneously generated this morning.
My questions are:
1) If I use a Time Machine backup from last night to restore the three affected mailboxes, will iCloud accept them as the de facto most up-to-date versions, or do I still have to go through some complicated process in order to convince the cloud that the 14,500+ unflagged emails don't then need to be "updated" to flagged status?
2) More importantly, will the cloud still sync properly so that I still get all of the emails that came since last night? I'm fine if the absence of the more recent emails from the "new" (actually older TM) mailboxes is interpreted as though they've been deleted, since my preferences are set to keep deleted email on the server for a month. But it would be a problem if those emails simply disappear into the ether.
3) Does anyone have any idea what might have caused the random flagging in the first place and/or suggestions for keeping it from happening in the future?
I remember vaguely that in the early days of Time Machine, restoring iCloud mailboxes was a complicated process in order to trick the cloud into accepting the Time Machine backup as the latest and greatest version. I take it that's no longer such a tricky proposition nowadays, since a search of Apple's knowledge base yielded little information on it. I'd appreciate some confirmation on that, however, so I know what to expect after the restore.
Thanks!
I'm going to try cross-posting this issue in both the iCloud and Time Machine forums since it's some of both. Apologies in advance if that causes confusion.

I set up an admin account for myself, logged on to it, and then followed the procedure in the help file to delete his account, saving it as a .dmg file. Then, when he asked for his old emails, I followed the procedure in the help file to restore a deleted user account and copied the contents of the .dmg into it.
I'm not entirely confident I got the restoration sequence right, since I find the order of steps in the help file confusing. But everything except the Mail data seems to be recovered.
Another source of trouble may be the email account settings: when I opened Mail under his log-on, there were no accounts set up: I recreated them using his email address and password, but Mail may well be treating these as new accounts, rather than re-opened old accounts.
Thanks, John

Help: cannot retrieve old files from Time Machine backup on new computer!

I backed up my old Macbook Pro for several months. I've got a new Macbook Pro and I succeeded to restore the last content of the old one using the migration assistant.
However, now I need some older files that I know are in the backup, but I can't restore them because you apparently can only do that with the computer from which you made the backups... a Time Machine backup is 'tied' to the sparsebundle using the MAC-address of the computer...
I don't have my old computer anymore, does this really mean that all the old file in the backup are lost for me? Or is there an other way?
Please help.
Wim

Wimek,
According to this KB article (http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1760)
"When upgrading from one Leopard-based Mac to a new Leopard-based Mac, and you wish to use Time Machine backups from the previous Mac, make sure the computer name of the new Mac (in Sharing preferences) is the same as your previous Mac's computer name was when its Time Machine backups were made. Afterwards, if the previous Mac is still on your network, give it a different computer name."

HT4413 When migrating from time machine to my new hard drive, only some files and applications and setting are transferred, not all of them. In my latest back up I have them all. How can I fix that?

When migrating from time machine to a new hard drive, not all is transferd, only partial documents, applications , settings etc. How can I migrate the latest back-up with all the content.

sohs wrote:
When migrating from time machine to a new hard drive, not all is transferd, only partial documents, applications , settings etc. How can I migrate the latest back-up with all the content.
If you want to use Time Machine to recover the contents of one of its a backups to a new drive, follow the instructions in Mac OS X 10.6: Recovering your entire system. Note that you must select the "Restore System From Backup" option from the Utilities menu of the Installer disc to do this.
Also note that if you are transferring files to a hard drive to be used with a different computer, you should use Migration Assistant instead. This intentionally will not copy everything because some settings, applications, etc. are not compatible computer-to-computer. Migration Assistant will copy everything that is.

How to get offline files back open?

How do I get my files back from being "offline" in my multitrack session? I by mistake closed a few files and now when I open them again in my media browser they still show as "offline" and cant' seem to get them back open to work with them again. I didn't delete anytying, why are they still showing offline ifI opened up the original file I used again?

Once you've got the file(s) back into the file area with the session file, go to Clip>Link Media. Or if there are a lot of original files, Link All Media.

HT201250 When migrating from time machine to my new hard drive, it migrates the first back-up I made several years ago. How can I migrate the latest back-up ?

When migrating from time machine to my new hard drive, it migrates the first back-up I made several years ago. How can I migrate the latest back-up ? I need time machine to migrate the latest back-up. Should I delete the older back-ups ?

As noondaywitch says, it should use the latest backup.
Where are your backups (external HD, Time Capsule, etc.)?
It sounds like there are two separate sets, and you're not connected to the right set.

How to reinstall from time machine onto a new hard drive?

how to reinstall the system from time machine to a new hard drive?

If you are connected to the internet you can do this.
Boot your computer and immediately hold down command, option and R (three keys together). This gets you connected with internet recovery.
See this article for more directions: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4718.
This process installs an OS on your blank drive. You can then boot from the fresh OS installation and restore from your Time Machine back up.
Note that you cannot boot from a TM back up.

New computer, how do I get my files off my old ipod to the new computer?

So, my old computer is completely fried. It's dead. We got a new one and I would really love it if someone could tell me how I would be able to keep the songs off my ipod when I hook it up to the new computer.

You cannot do it with iTunes, except for music purchased from the iTunes Store. However, there are numerous third-party utilities that provide this function. If you do a Google search on something like "ipod transfer music," you will see some links.
Once you get the files off the iPod and on your new computer, you just need to get them into your iTunes library and then sync your iPod to that library.

How do I restore printer preferences from time machine in Mountain Lion?

Yesterday I deleted all the printers and and after reinstalling the printer drivers from the printer disc, the printer cannot find the software, so how do retore the printer preferences from time machine?

The printer is a Samsung CLX-3180 series. I have downloaded the printer drivers from Apple:
Samsung Printer Drivers v2.5 for OS X
Then when I go into System preferences to Add the Samsung printer, I get the following message:
"Can't install the software for the Samsung CLX-3180 Series because it is not currently available from the Software Update server." Which I don't understand as i have downloaded the new drivers and the CLX-3180 is listed as a covered printer.

Back up from time machine and first new tm machine back up on new mac

hi
i just made a back up from time machine into a new iMac...
no i need to configure again TM for the new mac but even if i use the same TM disc the first new back up doesn't write onto the old one so I need to make a new back up from scratch... can't I keep on writing over the old one?
thanks
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Here is some of the best information you can find on Time Machine:
Pondini's Time Machine FAQ

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

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