Time Machine now showing folders instead of files after I've done something!

Question

Level 1

8 points

Time Machine now showing folders instead of files after I've done something!

Started off with missing Number files desperately needed but completely vanished, only had 2 but can't remember names of them, so tried to find them in time Machine. Caught a glimpse of Icon +date I remember altering them but must have done something wrong as instead of rows of files I now have seem to have changed to folders and getting in a mess. How do I revert to the original layout please.

I'd posted the first part of this problem earlier but seem to have landed myself with another!

Running Mojave on late 2013 Mac

iMac 21.5″, macOS 10.14

Posted on Oct 9, 2023 7:20 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

D.I. Johnson

Level 7

33,395 points

Oct 9, 2023 8:37 PM in response to 51Rene

If you are seeing the Backups.backupd folder, then you are accessing the drive contents directly via the Finder. That is not the correct way to recover files, but it is a very easy way to corrupt a TM backup data set.

Properly recovering files from the TM drive requires that you launch the Time Machine application (not the System Preferences panel) and use that to navigate to your files.

Please take another closer look at this link to guidance. Pay particular attention to understand items 1-4.

Restore items backed up with Time Machine on Mac - Apple Support

If you don't see the Time Machine icon in your menu bar and thus cannot find the the drop down menu, go to System Preferences > Time Machine and check mark the box at the bottom of that window that says "Show Time Machine in menu bar". The Time Machine icon should now appear and you can click that to "Enter Time Machine"

Reply

Answer 2

Oct 9, 2023 7:34 PM in response to 51Rene

Please see:

> Restore items backed up with Time Machine on Mac - Apple Support

> How to restore files from a Time Machine backup - Apple Support on YouTube

See also: See and organize your files in the Finder on Mac - Apple Support

Reply

Answer 3

ku4hx

Level 7

23,688 points

Oct 10, 2023 3:12 AM in response to 51Rene

I keep my important data in iCloud.

That way all my important data is always available on any device logged in with my one AppleID.

If the internet goes down, iCloud Drive has local up-to-the-minute files. That's by design.

If my backups fail, iCloud is still there. But then each machine (four of our five Macs) has two backup drives so the chances of losing data is remote ... and again the iCloud thing.

There are ways to protect yourself, but you have to make yourself knowledgable and work at understanding the various options, and then implement the various options on a regular, unfailing, every time 100% basis.

Each of our "production" Macs also has a tested bootable clone. The data on it will often be a couple of weeks behind ( I test maybe twice a month) but the missing data is easily recoverable from original sources. Another cya methodology.

And, of course, there is this: Verify your backup disk on Mac - Apple Support

A good idea to do ever so often. Better not to do it every eight years.

Reply

Answer 4

51Rene Author

Level 1

8 points

Oct 9, 2023 8:06 PM in response to D.I. Johnson

Thanks, but I've watched both of those previously. There is no drop down menu when I click on my Samsung Time Machine but managed to get into the files, I did briefly get a glimpse of a possible Numbers Icon but somehow ended up turning them all into folders, If I can revert to files I'm sure i can manage to find it again.

The Backups.backupd folder is there as usual but now it has Folders written in the bar above.

Reply

Answer 5

51Rene Author

Level 1

8 points

Oct 10, 2023 12:52 AM in response to D.I. Johnson

Many thanks, I have the Samsung on my Desktop and have been accessing it from there mainly, and of course it is on the menu bar as well! for some reason I’d never used it although it was ticked to be on.

wondered after I’d clicked the dropped down menu why the only files ( not folders now) were on my very cluttered desktop!

I’ll plead ignorance as it is a very tiny clock on the menu bar.

Unfortunately don’t know how to remove it from the desktop, can’t send it to trash like other items on there. Doesn’t give any options other than open eject and others and now when I open it by the menu bar the only files I can see are all the desktop ones!

skip that bit, I found out you can remove it from desktop in Finder Preferences,General and remove External Disks

p.s couldn’t go to bed with this on my mind so rather boggle-eyed now! Wouldn’t let me post at 5.30am so will keep trying. having to keep logging in again, but luckily saving my reply.

Found my lost Numbers files, thanks to you.

well worth losing a nights sleep for.

Reply

Answer 6

51Rene Author

Level 1

8 points

Oct 10, 2023 1:48 AM in response to ku4hx

Never would have bothered touching anything if my Numbers data sheets hadn’t vanished into thin air and from iCloud as well.

only when you Google a problem that you find so many others have had it happen to them.

Only took me 6 hrs through the night!

it annoyed me so much I wouldn’t have slept anyway and it’s sorted now. Had same 2 spreadsheets for the last 8 years just updated a few times a year and suddenly gone.

Reply

Answer 7

51Rene Author

Level 1

8 points

Oct 10, 2023 3:43 AM in response to ku4hx

The 2 Numbers spreadsheets were also in ICloud Drive, and they vanished as well.

Thankfully managed to salvage them as I had a vague idea where they were in Time Machine when I eventually sussed it out with help from D I Johnson.

I have never needed to go there, and discovered I’d got files from 2016 which some I’ll never use, like walking down memory lane!

Thanks for the Verify back up disk idea.

might need to clear out some of unneeded ancient files first.

Reply

Answer 8

ku4hx

Level 7

23,688 points

Oct 10, 2023 6:43 AM in response to 51Rene

"The 2 Numbers spreadsheets were also in ICloud Drive, and they vanished as well."

----

iCloud is an interactive service. It mirrors what you do in the local iCloud Drive folder on a real time basis. For the files to have been deleted from iCloud, it had to have been deleted locally unless you actively opened your iCloud.com site and deleted the files there. Either way, the process needs actual human intervention, purposeful or inadvertent, to work.

My experience tells me you have something going on with your system, some sort of problem, that's not being addressed here

Reply

Answer 9

ku4hx

Level 7

23,688 points

Oct 10, 2023 12:57 AM in response to 51Rene

As far as Finder and the TM dataset ... "You can look, but don't touch". Manipulations with Finder runs the rather high risk of data damage.

Reply

Time Machine now showing folders instead of files after I've done something!

Similar questions