restoring from time machine folder - alternative method?
I have an external hard drive with time machine backups on it from my iMac before it died. If I use finder, I can open the external drive and then open the backups folder and see all the backups from various dates in the past. If I choose a date and open the folder and then go into the data folder within, I can work my way to a folder that has files in it that I want to restore. Can I just drag this folder to my other hard drive to “restore” the files? Or do I have to use time machine or migration assistant to restore these files? Can I do it this alternative way (just using finder) or will I lose data if I do so? It’s a 5 TB backup drive and my iMac had about half of its 2 TB drive used. There are so many backups - are all of my files inside each of these backup folders for each date? That doesn’t seem possible.
iMac Line (2012 and Later)