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Can't go back in Time Machine

I wanted to restore a file from Time Machine (Ventura 13.2.1 M1 iMac). I opened my Finder to Applications and selected the file I wanted to restore. Then I clicked on Time Machine/Browse Time Machine Backups, and tried to scroll up on the side. I could go up a few hours, but when I tried to select a date from last week, nothing happened. I hit the up arrow next to the finder, and nothing happened. Now that I am done, I see the icon in my menu bar is white. It was black before.


What's going on? Why can't I get back to last week's backup?

iMac 24″, macOS 13.2

Posted on Feb 25, 2023 6:54 PM

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10 replies

Feb 25, 2023 7:17 PM in response to howardfromlafayette

howardfromlafayette wrote:

I wanted to restore a file from Time Machine (Ventura 13.2.1 M1 iMac). I opened my Finder to Applications and selected the file I wanted to restore. Then I clicked on Time Machine/Browse Time Machine Backups, and tried to scroll up on the side. I could go up a few hours, but when I tried to select a date from last week, nothing happened. I hit the up arrow next to the finder, and nothing happened. Now that I am done, I see the icon in my menu bar is white. It was black before.

What's going on? Why can't I get back to last week's backup?


Well does not sound like it is available....


Is your external drive plugged in and mounted?


Local snap shots are stored locally on your internal drive for ~24 hours only and are over written.


Some time upgrade makes you lose older backups...depending on the the history of things/circumstances.


You can try holding the Option key and click your TM icon>"Browse Other Backup Disc"

and see if you have any access.


Back up your Mac with Time Machine - Apple Support


About Time Machine local snapshots on Mac - Apple Support



If you value your user data

3-2-1 Backup Strategy: three copies of your data, two different methods, and one offsite.

More than one device, more than one backup methodology.




Feb 26, 2023 8:08 PM in response to tbirdvet

I probably did, but I can't go back even to last week.


I ran Disk Utility to do First Aid. First, I saw that it had a container disk. My wife's Time Machine (that works correctly doesn't have a container disk:


Ran First Aid on hard drive, finished instantly.

Ran Disk Utility First Aid on “Container disk 10”

Checking storage system and repairing if necessary and possible

Performing fsck_apfs -y -x /dev/disk9s2

Error: container /dev/rdisk10 is mounted.

Storage systems check exit code is 65.

Storage system verify or repair failed. (-69716)

Operation failed…

Ran first aid on the logical drive, took all day.


When it finished, I rebooted and tried First Aid on the container disk with the same result. I can't run First Aid on the container. And I can't select a backup time older than today even though I can click on it. And I can't use the up-arrow to get to those past dates.

Feb 27, 2023 6:34 AM in response to tbirdvet

What did shift-command-c do? I tried it and was able to find more dates, especially when using the arrows (not so much the side. Sometimes I will click on the up arrow and it will zoom a bunch.


I wonder what would happen if I got a new drive and then copied all of the files from this one over.


I am trying to decide whether to just format this drive again and start over. I do have two clones drives but they are smaller drives and I want a big drive for Time Machine (didn't do me any good this time though).

Can't go back in Time Machine

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