Time Machine Backup Folders Locked

Time Machine backups are protected by very restrictive ACLs, to keep us mere mortals from fooling with them and corrupting our backups.

You should be able to view and restore items from the backups via the Time Machine "Star Wars" display -- it's designed for that. But it will enforce user privileges -- normally one user, even an Admin user, doesn't have permission to see a different user's files.

Normally, Time Machine only shows the backups for the Mac you're running on. To see other backups, you'll need the Browse Other Backup Disks option, per #17 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions. For info on restoring, see #15 there.

Depending on how many user accounts you have, and how and in what order they were created, you may still have some permissions problems. If so, try a different user account.

pealo86 wrote:

. . .

I've tried the Star Wars display but with no luck, none of the backups from my iMac are listed.

You're on the MBP, trying to look at the backups from an iMac, right? If so, you must use the Browse.. option, per #17 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions.

It's not clear just how you back the iMac up to that drive -- if it's over a network, the backups are in a sparse bundle disk image, which you may have to mount manually before using the Browse .. option.

Also, I tried the link you gave me but it doesn't appear to mention what to do when the folders are "locked"?

They're not locked: they belong to a different user account. One user, even an Admin user, doesn't normally have permission to see a different user's files.

The definition of a "user account" may be the problem here; if you have UserA on one Mac and UserA on another, they're not necessarily the same user to OSX -- they may have different User ID numbers (UIDs). See the pink box in Problems after using Migration Assistant for an explanation.

Those permissions are copied to your backups, and OSX enforces them when you try to access backups.

So . . . see what the UIDs are for the accounts in question, on the two Macs, via the example in the pink box. It sounds like they're different. If so, post back with the numbers, and we'll look for a solution.

I never used to have this problem in Snow Leopard, just seems to have cropped up after upgrading.

How did you upgrade? Did you upgrade "in place" or did you do a "clean install" of either Mac?

If you did a "clean install," how did you transfer your apps, user accounts, data, etc.? Especially if you used Migration Assistant (instead of Setup Assistant), that may be the cause.

Surely there must be a way to disable it? Talk about making something over secure!

Not easily 😟 but there may be a workaround. (If it was easy, one user would no longer be protected from prying eyes.)

This is how I dealth with this problem when I ran into it. It seems that you are browsing the backup drive in Finder, not in Star Wars mode (based on your screenshot). That's how I did it.

In order to preserve the integrity of the backup, what I did was copy the folder I'm interested in seeing to the desktop. It will still be protected, though. Then, I log out [we'll call me user 1] and log back in as the root user, browse to the folder in question, and change the permissions so that it's fully accessible to "user 1".

I hope this works....

Sorry, but that workaround is cumbersome for more than a one-time use, and rather dangerous: logging in as root can lead to untold damage.

We should be able to devise an actual solution. Let's wait until we hear back from the original poster.

pealo86 wrote:

Thanks for the info.

Yes it does sound like the ID numbers are different as I performed a clean install on both Macs.

What are the numbers of each (per the instructions in my earlier post)?

I'm thinking the easiest way will be simply to copy the folder in question onto the root directory of my external hard drive (whilst using my iMac) and then copy it to my MBP that way... save myself a lot of hassle!

That's unlikely to work. OSX will copy and enforce the permissions, although if it will let you copy it to a volume that doesn't enforce permissions, then you can copy it to the MBP.

Probably; that depends on the setup of the drive:

Be sure you can do what you want with those files, such as update and delete.

Also - assuming the iMac is still working, you could restore the files there using (Star Wars mode) and move them to the MBP.