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

Hi,

I recently found this worked for me. Hope it works for you as well.

1. Open Terminal and enter:

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -bool true && osascript -e 'quit app "Finder"'

2. Proceed to the Library folder in the Time Machine backups to recover what you need.

3. When finished change true to false to have it revert back to the original settings.

Good Luck

Alberto, you are a hero. Gone through the whole internet, twice, before I finally found your magic commands. I dont know why the other suggestions won't work but I did my back up in Snow Leopard, and now try to reach TM library (Snow L) from my clean installed Mountain Lion iMac.

/Friss

Alberto, thank you, you Terminal-using ninja. I never would've figured this out by myself. Worked perfectly!

This is the solution!! Dick M, I cannot thank you enough. The problem with accessing the library folder from time machine is that you cannot access the "Go" menu. The solution as Dick has said is that you access the library folder the traditional way then drag the folder to your sidebar. All sidebar items are then visible in time machine. I have saved hours of wasted time recovering this file. Thank you!!!

Thanks Alberto, your solution using Terminal worked perfectly for me!

Thank you, Alberto. Very helpful!

HonesDon: Your solution helped me when I experienced the same issue! Big thanks!!

Thanks so much Alberto! You saved me some serious time.

Alberto won the Internet on April 12, 2012.

What's interesting is this started happening when I switched to Mavericks from Lion. Even though the Library is hidden in Lion, it was not hidden in TM. Only in Mavericks did it start hiding in TM.

Thank you HonestDon! I had an infected file in a backup of a sentmail folder, and could not get to it through any of the methods prior to your suggestion. Your method let me navigate through my backup drive, through my library, and delete the suspect file. Bravo!

ID

Hi HonestDon,

That script worked a treat and I was able to locate my Lion mail boxes (which were hidden) and data and import them to my new mail in Mavericks.

Kind Regards, Alfred (Australia)

I know this is an old thread and this may not be seen but "Thank You!" for this. I thought I had lost all the emails from my wife's account. Command+Shift+G let me find all the email stories her 77 year old mother has sent her.

Thank you for this! So helpful!!!!!

It did work for me!! Great help, thank you so much!!

Hi HonestDon and Alberto

Thanks for your posts. I think I've just added another level of complexity!

After trawling the internet last night and this morning your posts are as close as I've got to restoring Mailboxes and Photos from a previous User account stored on my Time Machine to a new user account just created on Mavericks.

Unfortunately in between I left my Mac running (with TM activated) and it appears to have erased the ONLY solid User Library backup I had on the TM (due to insufficient memory). Do you know if there is a way of accessing an 'erased' version of a different User Library on TM? i.e. is there a temporary 'trash' or something similar for 'erased' User Libraries?

Thanks in advance

Alex