How can I access ~/library on my time machine backup?

Alberto Ravasio you're the MAN! I know this is old but IDC!! You saved my life here! Since I moved my home directory to my 6TB raid, and went to restore on new computer it completely messed up my admin logins and had to just do a fresh install of OS, and manually drag what I wanted over. This included mail which was the hardest to find!! Thank you again!

According to Wikipedia, "Elegance is beauty that shows unusual effectiveness and simplicity." This solution (simple and effective) surely qualifies as elegant (the "beauty" part coming from how much time and frustration it saved me). Thank you Alberto. 🙂

Simplest is to first navigate to your user's folder in back up then do following from the same finder window

1- Command + Shift + G

2- In the popup type exactly this (without any / or \ or ~ etc): Library

Now it should take you to the Library folder of your selected backup.

Open a Finder window.

Select Go from the Finder menu. Press alt/option key, you'll see Library pop up into the menu. Select it.

Now the Finder window should show the content of your Library folder.

Enter TM and restore what you need to.

While within Time Machine, type Command/Shift/G. At the prompt type ~/Library/

Should work

Here is a link from previous discussions and more options

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3297320?answerId=16271356022#16271356022

RM

Last but not least, navigate the TM disk within the Finder, (do not enter TM).

When you are on the date you are looking for, navigate the directory structure until you reach the Users folder.

Open Terminal and type

cd

and a space, drag and drop your user name folder inside the Terminal window. That completes the cd command for you. Hit return.

You are now into your user folder inside the TM disk. Type

cd Library

open .

please note the dot after open. Last command opens a Finder window of the Library folder inside TM disk.

Now you are ready to get what you need.

First of all, the user Library is now hidden in Lion. From Finder, go to the Go menu and hit your option key. Your user Library should be available. If it is not, then you have a whole seperate problem which none of these posts will solve. If you do have a valid Library then do this.

From the Go menu and option key, enter your Library folder. Drag the little folder at top of finder window and put in into the sidebar at left. Now you can access hidden Library folder anytime and should be there when you enter Time Machine too.

Hope this helps

RM

Could you please report here the result of the following 2 (Terminal) commands after following the procedure I gave you

pwd

ls -la

thanks

I have the same problem and try your terminal manipulation.

I did the same thing than hiredgoon, did a fresh install and got the Time machine of my old system. So it does not link with my new system.

But when i do your terminal trick, the library that pop up suddenly is the one on the fresh install, not the one on my old time machine backup. When you said to drag the user folder, I did it from the time machine hard drive but still open the Library of my fresh install.

Any idea?

Gilles Savard1 wrote:

But when i do your terminal trick, the library that pop up suddenly is the one on the fresh install, not the one on my old time machine backup. When you said to drag the user folder, I did it from the time machine hard drive but still open the Library of my fresh install.

Are you sure?

Look at the picture above. You can see the full TM disk path to Library folder, after dragging my user folder inside Terminal window.

1) In a Finder window, open your old user name folder on your Time Machine hard drive:

Backups.backupdb > Latest > Old computer name > Users > Your user name

2) Press Command+Shift+G.

3) Type ~/Library/.

This will open your backed up Library folder.