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Can I use Time Machine to restore icon positions on Desktop?

Can I use Time Machine to restore the previous positioning of a large number of icons that we were sorting on on the desktop? If I understand correctly, that positioning information may be stored in the invisible file called .DS_Store . If I use Spotlight to locate that invisible file on the desktop and then enter time machine, can I restore the older version? Any other specific instructions that anyone can provide to accomplish this?

MacBook Pro, i5, 15 inch & iMac Intel Core 2 Duo, 2.4 GHz, 24-inch, Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on Feb 21, 2012 6:16 PM

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5 replies

Feb 21, 2012 6:31 PM in response to Bob Mayo

Should work theoretically. I'm no expert on TimeMachine restores with invisible files.



If something screws up you can use OnyX to rebuild the ds_store files without all the placement of course.


http://www.titanium.free.fr/



The free TInkertool will turn on/off all invisible items, not sure if it works for TM though.


http://www.bresink.com/osx/TinkerTool.html



Good Luck. 🙂

Feb 21, 2012 7:41 PM in response to Bob Mayo

I took the plunge and successfully did it as follows.


-First, to be safe, I decided to "Back Up Now" in Time Machine.


-I then used the keyboard Command-F to begin a Spotlight seach


-Clicked to Search in my home folder "YourUserNameHere" ...and by File Name (as opposed to Content)


-Chose "Visibility" and "Invisible Items" as my search criteria. (I first chose "Other" to get to the "Visibility" option)


-I used the List View instead of Icon View to look at the results


-I sorted the list view by "Date Modified"


-If my search yielded more than one .DS_Store file, I selected and highlighted the .DS_Store file that resided under YourUserNameHere>Desktop.


- Next, I Entered Time Machine, and searched back for a version of the file from before I re-arranged the icons on my desktop.


-With that file selected in Time Machine, I clicked "Restore"


-TIme Machine asked me if I wanted to replace the file at that location which already has that name. I answered that yes, I did want to replace it.


- Finally, logged out of my account, then logged back in. Everything was back as I wanted it.

Can I use Time Machine to restore icon positions on Desktop?

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