Restore data to different laptop from time machine

Hello! All my data from my old macbook was saved in TM on an external HD. Now I bought a macbook air and would like to restore some of my old data from the external HD (TM) to my new laptop. The air has less memory than the old macbook had. How to choose the data I need for restoration onto my macbook air?

Apple does not make a device suitable directly to do what you want.
There are NAS devices from the big three that provide proper raid disks, mirrored backup, rsync and itunes servers.. although the itunes may not do what you need. Netgear Synology Qnap.
But the solution often adopted by Apple fanbois.. is to use a Mac Mini as a media centre. You don't need a brand new one.. even a 2ghz C2D from a few years ago will work well enough.. you need to add disk capacity via firewire.. would be preferred as it is much faster than USB.

Similar Messages

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    Yes indeed. It's about as close to painless as possible.
    And you can transfer directly from the old Mac (usually best), or Time Machine backups, or a "clone" of it. Your choice.
    Your best bet is to use +Setup Assistant.+ See #19 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum) for details.

  • I can't restore 'library' with support files from Time Machine

    backup - I can't restore 'library' with support files from Time Machine - Ask Different
    Due to an accident, my entire applications folder with all the support files, including plists and caches got deleted.
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    I even tried it with migration assistant on a new image.
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    Details of the ‘accident’
    I was using this app called ‘AppCleaner’ that also automatically deletes related support files which are normally left behind if one simply trashes an Application.
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    I finally tried restoring the state using migration assistant on the very same SSD that had my files missing. This happened successfully and I have all my applications in the applications folder.
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    Basically, it feels like I just got a new macbook with my documents and itunes folder loaded on to it.
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    Screenshots:
    Message was edited by: Arsenenger

    Can you simply navigate to your Time Machine backup with the Finder? Treat it like an external hardrive and just look for your old Applications folder. /Applications/
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  • HT4927 How to restore photos in mountain lion from time machine ?

    How to restore photos in mountain lion from time machine?

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  • I restored my safari bookmark playlist from time machine.But it again missing after sometime.Again I restored the same thing happns again.plz help

    I restored my safari bookmark playlist from time machine.But it again missing after sometime.Again I restored the same thing happns again.plz help

    Triple-click the text on the line below to the clipboard, then copy it to the Clipboard (command-C):
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  • Restore to different disk from Time Machine backup

    Using Snow Leopard. I installed a larger hard disk in my Macbook Pro just over a week ago, and kept the old disk. Time Machine had worked before the update and continued to work after the update. So I did another week of work and created new documents, etc. hopefully all backed up.
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    Time Machine - Troubleshooting E3. I can't see backups for a disk/partition that's no longer connected

  • How can I restore an old iPhone backup from Time Machine?

    Hi there,
    I lost my iPhone 4S but have a extra iPhone 4 (used for travel) that I would like to restore the 4S backup to.
    The problem is that the backup of my 4S has somehow disappeared from itunes and the only one that shows up is the iPhone 4 backup even though they are set up as different devices with different names. I know that the backup for my 4S is included with my Time Machine backups (on external harddrive) but I can't find the files. Also very strange is that I don't have the folder "MobileSync" in /Library/Application Support/MobileSync on my computer. I can't find that folder anywhere.
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    Who ever can solve this for me deserves a gold medal. I'm truly desperate. I've searched all forums and haven't found a solution for this.
    Thanks.

    caxx wrote:
    Also very strange is that I don't have the folder "MobileSync" in /Library/Application Support/MobileSync on my computer. I can't find that folder anywhere.
    Correct.
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  • How restore aol sent mac mail from time machine?

    I am using mac mail and an imap connection to aol.  I also have a time capsule and use time machine for backing up. Yesterday I stopped receiving incoming mail in mac mail and tried deleting the aol account in mac mail and then setting it up fresh.  I was shocked to find that my 25,000 AOL sent emails did not restore! I was told by an apple genius bar rep several months ago that once mail was on my machine that the emails would NEVER be lost.  Apparently this is not true.  When I open mac mail and go into my time capsule using time machine, however, do not see the SENT mail icon under AOL--it goes away?  When I try to restore the aol mail from the day before the incident the only thing that comes up is the one Sent Mail mssg that I sent AFTER the deleting and restoring of my AOL account in mac mail. The only relevant post I have found is the one below which was posted in 2008.  Please let me know there is a way to get back my sent messages.  I can't get them directly from the aol server because the server does not save messages that are sent from any client but AOL. Thanks.
    http://raffyjohn.com/2008/01/29/restoring-apple-mail-and-your-emails-from-time-m achine/
    Restoring Apple Mail and Your Emails from Time Machine
    filed under: How-To tags: mail, timemachine Tuesday, January 29, 2008, 11:31 am
    UPDATE (25 August 2010): Please note that this post is well over 2 years old and as Tim pointed out in the comments below, this method may not be the best solution for restoring emails. According to his restore efforts, changes where made to the timestamp from the date in which they were received to the date in which they were restored. I have not tested this myself.
    The hard drive on my PowerBook completely died the other day, but I luckily had been running Time Machine backups since upgrading to Leopard. (I wasn’t all that ****** off seeing as I was eager for an excuse to replace my wimpy 40Gb hard drive with a new 160Gb drive). I fumbled a bit, looking for a specific Apple Mail restore tool. I knew where all my emails lived, but I thought that Apple would have a specific means for restoring apps like Mail. So I created this mini-tutorial on how to restore Apple Mail from Time Machine simply because I could not find this method elsewhere.
    Supposedly, If you attach your Time Machine backup drive, open Apple Mail then launch the Time Machine application, you are presented with historical views of Apple Mail. This did not work for me, the historical views were just blank, so the steps below do not take this approach.
    Restoring Your Emails from a Time Machine Backup
    Warning: If you have already setup Apple Mail with your accounts and preferences, this will negate ALL your doings.
    Note: This process will restore all your email accounts, preferences, passwords, smart mailboxes, etc.
    The How-To
    Before loading Time Machine, open the Finder and navigate to Home Folder (username) -> Library. In there will be a folder name “Mail”. Rename it to “Mail (default)” (Select the folder then hit the Return key to rename).
    Mount your Time Machine Backup Drive (ahem, plug it in).
    Control + Click the Time Machine Application and chose “Browse Other Time Machine disks…”. This, of course, brings up the historical view of your backups.
    Go back to your most recent backup (2nd window back) and navigate to Home Folder (username) -> Library. Select the “Mail” folder and click the restore button (bottom right).
    Once the restore is completed, open Apple Mail and you will be presented with an import wizard (below). Simply follow through the prompts and you will be good to go.
    That’s it!UPDATE (20-January-2009): After step 4., also restore ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plistThanks Jon C.
    If you have multiple mail accounts, you should also restore the ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist file as well. This will ensure all of your account settings are imported. – Jon C.
    Follow me on Twitter here.
    40 Comments
    Chucho
    May 13th, 2008 at 11:11 amThanks it’s a great hint, you should post it in macosxhints.com
    Westin
    May 19th, 2008 at 3:28 amAwesome content and great instructions even for stupid people like me. Thank you so much for posting this. It worked like a charm and really is appreciated at 2:30 a.m. after hours of reinstalling junk.
    Slippery Snake
    June 23rd, 2008 at 9:15 amThis worked. However, I had three email accounts, and it only imported one. My Smart Mailboxes were not imported either.
    Jon C
    July 30th, 2008 at 2:50 pmIf you have multiple mail accounts, you should also restore the ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist file as well. This will ensure all of your account settings are imported.
    Joseph Hurtado
    August 26th, 2008 at 11:23 amRaffy,This tip is worth it’s weight in gold! Thanks so much for posting such a well though out recipe for a Mail Rescue operation.Just put Jon’s advice on the article, that is also very valuable!Take care,Joseph Hurtado
    from Toronto
    Cory
    December 3rd, 2008 at 9:25 amYou saved my life! Thanks!
    Drew
    January 19th, 2009 at 12:08 amCheers Great tip! Thank you very much for your time!
    Lizart
    May 23rd, 2012 at 2:00 pmStill working in May of 2012! Thanks so much!
    source
    May 29th, 2012 at 11:11 amIm getting a teeny problem. I cant get my reader to pick up your feed, Im using bing reader by the way.
    Bruno Zysman
    May 31st, 2012 at 4:56 pmThanks so much for this tips
    I could get back my 170 000 mails in 5 hours thanks to this post, after having tried for few hours without success…Bruno

    Don't try to restore the file; restore the Note. Go in Mail to the mailbox where the note belongs. Enter Time Machine from there and step back until you find the Note.

  • How to restore a deleted iCloud note from time machine backup?

    The short of it... one of my kids decided they didn't need certain notes, therefore deleted them!!!! 
    (my fault i did not have notes/synced/off on new device!),
    but they are important and iCloud is synced across all devices and those notes are gone. 
    Wasn't sure if a device/ restore from back up would work - didn't.
    Tried some of the Apple Communities/ going to lib/ turn off wifi/ move the 3 files to desktop/ move back to lib file, nothing. 
    Could I get some 'really specific' step by steps?  seems others have had success, and maybe i'm in TM when I should be on my Mac or vice versa?! or in the wrong library?
    My TM backups just does not let me get anywhere to restore those deleted notes.
    Any help would be wonderful!
    Thanks
    Thinking Apple should have given us an iCloud safety net or at least allow TM/ iCloud to be userfriendly.

    I used this to restore my deleted notes from Time Machine, hope this helps others
    closed Notes,
    turned WiFi off,
    entered finder/go+option/ to 'get to library':  /Library/Containers/com.apple.Notes/Data/Library/Notes/
    entered TM and selected the 3 files/ hit restore/ keep both (just to make sure, then I deleted the newer file, not the 'restored' file when this worked out)
    opened notes and my deleted notes were back so I copied my notes into pages as a backup,
    turned on WiFi and the notes disappeared!
    replaced my restored notes by copy/pasting my backups into notes/iCloud.... 
    notes/mac would not show across iCloud.... don't remeber this being an issue prior to Mavericks when 'all' notes were selected?
    Apple needs to hear from us so they can fix glitches like this.  TM was created for instances like this, hopefully this is just an oversite.  Pass this along to Apple Feedback/iCloud/bug.  If enough of us flag such issues, hopfully it's addressed on the next update.
    Dear Apple, this should be much easier than it is. We should be able to open Notes, go into Time Machine, and restore anything regardless if it's on my Mac or on the cloud.

  • How to restore MBP with dual drives from time machine

    Hi one and all. Hoping I can get some help here. My trusty mid 2010 i5 MBP's hdd died on me the other day, which isn't really the problem, as I've got two time machine back-ups. The issue is that in my wisdom I decided to swap out my old (and nearly full) 500 GB HDD with a 240 GB SSD (Crucial M500). I then loaded OSX 10.6.3 via the dvd that came with my MBP, formatting the SSD in the process. Then promptly removed the optical drive for a Samsung 1TB drive, formatted it and started transferring all my data over via the migration assistant.
    I put everything other than photos, movies and some documents on the SSD, with the space hungry images, movies and docs going on the HDD. Now I'm assuming that because my boot drive (the SSD) is smaller than the time machine back-up (about 480 GB), this was the only way to do it? Doesn't really sound like I've got much of a problem then does it? Well, I then attempted to update the OS to OS X 10.6.8 so I could update again to mavericks. I installed the update to 10.6.8 and now I'm stuck in a perpetual log-in loop. The password is correct, it starts to log-in, then blue screen and back to log-in... repeat to fade or until you feel like giving your mac a Basil Faulty style thrashing, which ever comes first.
    I've ordered a thumb drive with Lion 10.7 on so that I can attempt to try again (really can't be bothered to re-install the optical drive), but I was hoping someone may have experienced this kind of issue before and have some kind words of wisdom. No worries if not, I'll just go outside and try to find a decent branch to thrash my previously loved mac with
    Cheers
    Rich

    Right well it appears I have further complicated things for myself. Whilst I was waiting to sort out my MBP, I restored from time machine to my mac mini so that I had a machine to work from. Then I fixed my MBP by installing new drives (SSD and HDD where the optical drive used to be), and using migration assitant to copy everything over from time machine. So now I technically have two machines the same.
    Only problem is when I try to update the MBP with Mavericks it tells me it cannot install on this machine. Is this because I did restored the same original mac to two new machines?

  • How on earth do I restore my old Address Book from Time Machine?

    Problem: I really, really need to retrieve someone's number. I know it'll be in an old version of my Address Book. I can see when I open time Machine that my address book is backed up, but no matter the date I go to, it says the Address Book was last modified in 2012! I know for a fact I've updated (and backed up) the Address Book many times since then.
    Whenever I try to restore the Address Book, I do Time Machine > Applications > Address Book > 'restore'. But whenever I do this, the mac refuses to open the restored Address Book because it's 'required by mac OS X'.
    I don't understand.
    Please, how on earth do I dredge my Address Book from the depths of Time Machine?
    Please help!
    M

    Look at Q15 here. http://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html
    There are separate sections for iphoto and itunes.
    It has to be so complicated because Apple made TM to do too much and be too many things to too many people.. a horse designed by a committee. It has become flakey in later editions.
    If you still have the iMac you can move the files directly from the source.. you don't need to use TM backups at all.

  • Can I restore a iPhone back up from time machine and if so how?

    I have upgraded my iphone to IOS 7 this morning. However as I was backing up my phone, the cable I was using was removed from the macbook.
    I now have a iPhone back up that is corrupted, and when i try and restore my settings to the new IOS7 upgraded phone, it will not allow my old settings to be placed on the phone.
    I am therefore thinking of using an old back up from Time Machine, but do not know how to access itunes from time machine. Everytime I try and enter iTunes from my Time Machine vault it says Mac OSX requires the application and therefore cannot be restored.
    Please help or tell me what I should be doing instead.
    I have a feeling I will lose my app data and have to manually sort my home screens. Luckily all my contacts, emails, photos etc are synced to iCloud, but the back up of my iphone isn't as I don;t have the upgraded space on ICloud and have a iPhone thta has 16GB on it.
    Cheers in anticipation of your help
    Stephen

    Hi Lawrence. Thanks so much for that advice - I'm really grateful. I hope you don't mind me asking a couple more questions: I have found that folder via Finder - I clicked on Library then App Support then Mobile Sync and within that, there's a folder called Backup and within that, 4 files. I also tried accessing it via the Go/go to folder method you suggested (in case that revealed more which remain hidden unless I use your route) but I couldn't make that route work.
    I presume I'm looking at the correct files but please advise me if it's still possible that I'm not.
    I had already tried to look at these backup files in Time Machine. They appear to be backed up, going back a year. If I can restore one from yesterday, that should solve my problem. However I've looked through them randomly going back a month or more, and they all seem to have been created in 2013, and last modified then. Only one of the files has a more recent 'last modified' date. But surely Time Machine has captured each backup of the iPhone going back over time?   I'm baffled.
    I hope the above makes sense. I'd be really grateful for any further advice.
    steve

  • Restore specific iPhoto ALBUMS (only) from time machine

    hi people,
    I was wondering if there is a way to restore only specific albums from time machine. i did a fresh install in my laptop recently and dont want to dump 40gb of pics back on to it, but there are just a few albums i would like to restore. i googled for a while and kept winding up at the "restore library" result, or "restore individual pics" but not just the album. i would imagine iphoto would make a specific fold for said albums, but i cant seem to find it.
    please help / thanks in advance!

    LarryHN wrote:
    Sorry but albums can not be restored - and you can not select them in the show package contents display - albums are simply entries in the iPhoto database and have no physical presence
    Additionally showing package contents and entering the iPhoto library is extremely dangerous and a tiny user error can destroy the library and cause dataloss  --  it is strongly recommended to never go into the inside of the iPhoto library and there never is a reason t do so
    What you are doing is restoring the originals from an event losing any modifications and any metadata editing
    And you are breaking a cardinal rule by making changes to the content of the iPhoto library using something other than iPhoto which will not work - photos muct be imported into iPhoto, not saved into its database
    But the biggest problem with the OP's plan is that Time Machine is NOT an archival system but a backup system and eventually it will remove the oldest files so sooner or later the OP would lose their photos that had not been restored
    LN
    Agreed to a large extent, but I don't have anything in the Modified folder to try.
    My albums appear in originals as folders. But as you say, they are the raw imports.
    As to the wisdom of the procedure; it worked, and I was slightly surprised it did from within a package, but i accept your overall premise.

  • How do I restore an entire boot disk from time machine?

    This used to be an option on the older system installers "Restore from time machine backup." I don't see this with the ML installer.

    See How do I restore my entire system?

  • How to restore *just one iTunes playlist* from Time Machine?

    Hi all --
    I'm pretty picky about my iTunes playlists. There are several main ones ("Jazz Lite," "R&B," "Jazz Traditional," etc. etc.) and these playlists can overlap in their coverage/share certain songs.
    So last Sunday I realized that I had fat-fingered things and had accidentally deleted the R&B playlist.
    If possible I'd like to surgically restore *just that R&B playlist* from Time Machine and include it among all of the other existing playlists.
    Although I've searched around on the internet for an answer, everything that has turned up so far seems to involve:
    - restoring ALL playlists from Time Machine
    - older version of iTunes (I'm currently using 11.0.3)
    Your help greatly appreciated!

    For posterity's sake, since i had this issue too, i thought i'd post my solution.
    Locate and save a copy, locally on your computer, of a library.itl file that would contain the playlist you need. I'd suggest saving to your desktop. name it so you'll recognize it as the old library file.
    Quit iTunes if open, and relaunch, holding down the Option key immediately after
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    Find the file you saved in step 1. this will launch iTunes with all the old playlists and such. Don't worry, it doesn't touch the actual songs themselves, so nothing is lost of from your current library.
    Find the playlist(s) you want, right click on them and export. save them as .txt file (again, suggest desktop for ease)
    Once all playlists you want to restore are saved, quit iTunes.
    Launch iTunes, again pressing Option immediately after
    Select "Choose Library" and select the Music -> iTunes -> iTunes Library.itl file. This will restore iTunes to the most current copy of your library
    Select File -> Library -> Import Playlist and find the .txt file for your playlist on your desktop. et voila!

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