restore with time machine

Hello 1757arm,

Thank you for reaching out to Apple Support Communities.

These steps will walk you though the process of restoring specific items using Time Machine:

"Restore items backed up with Time Machine on Mac

If you use Time Machine to back up the files on your Mac, you can easily get back lost items or recover older versions of files. You can use Time Machine within many apps. 

1. On your Mac, open a window for the item you want to restore.For example, to recover a file you accidentally deleted from your Documents folder, open the Documents folder.If you’re missing an item from the desktop, you don’t need to open a window.
2. Use Launchpad to view and open apps on Mac and open Time Machine (in the Other folder). A message may appear while your Mac connects to the backup disk.
3. Use the arrows and timeline to browse the local snapshots and backups.If you see a pulsing light to semi-dark gray tick mark, it represents a backup that’s still loading or validating on the backup disk.
4. Select one or more items you want to restore (these can include folders or your entire disk), then click Restore.Restored items return to their original location. For example, if an item was in the Documents folder, it’s returned to the Documents folder."

More details can be found here: Restore items backed up with Time Machine on Mac

If you use Time 

If the issue persists, can you provide a few more details? Which device and macOS version are you currently using? Also, how often do you back up your device with Time Machine?

Cheers!