HT201250: Use Time Machine to back up or restore your Mac
Learn about Use Time Machine to back up or restore your Mac
Q: Want to restore selected folders from time machine
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Apr 21, 2014 4:42 PMby VikingOSX,HelpfulTurn off Time Machine on your new MacBook Pro. Connect your old Time Machine drive, and start double-clicking:
YourTimeMachineIcon > Backups.backupdb > Old Computer Name > DateStampedFolderYouWant > YourBootDriveName > Users > LoginName > Documents
Select the multiple folders you want to put on your new machine. Right-click, and from the contextual menu, choose copy. [You need to know the total storage you plan to copy beforehand, against available. See the last paragraph.]
In the left panel of your Finder window, click once on Documents to open that folder. Right-click on the Finder window and choose paste. The selected folders from your old Time Machine backup will be copied and deposited into your current Documents folder. Disconnect your old Time Machine drive, and resume Time Machine backups on your new MacBook Pro.
The above technique would also work if you had another drive mounted as your folder destination.
Caveat: My OCZ Vertex 128GB boot drive had a caution that exceeding 50% drive space would invoke a performance reduction algorithm in the SSD controller. UNIX systems in general begin to degrade storage performance after more than 75% of the boot drive is consumed.
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by clintonfrombirmingham,Apr 22, 2014 12:56 AM
clintonfrombirmingham
Apr 22, 2014 12:56 AM
in response to Razzmatazz2005
Level 7
(30,009 points)
Mac OS XJust use the 'star wars' Time Machine app, select the folder(s) that you want to restore and click on the Restore button.
Pretty simple, really.
Clinton
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by VikingOSX,Apr 22, 2014 3:01 AM
VikingOSX
Apr 22, 2014 3:01 AM
in response to clintonfrombirmingham
Level 7
(21,185 points)
Mac OS XThat was my first thought, and then discounted it as he was on a new machine, not the original source of the Time Machine backup. And if it is encrypted ...
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by clintonfrombirmingham,Apr 22, 2014 3:10 AM
clintonfrombirmingham
Apr 22, 2014 3:10 AM
in response to VikingOSX
Level 7
(30,009 points)
Mac OS X
Did the OP say that the drive was encrypted? It shouldn't matter whether or not he/she is on a new machine or not - the Time Machine app should work.
Clinton
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by VikingOSX,Apr 22, 2014 4:19 AM
VikingOSX
Apr 22, 2014 4:19 AM
in response to clintonfrombirmingham
Level 7
(21,185 points)
Mac OS X
There is more involved with Time Machine than just connecting an older TM drive, and navigating with the dock TM viewer.
Unless you add the current and past TM drives as backup devices in TM preferences, it will block access to the older drive. Once you tell it to use both, the TM viewer works, but you can only see current backup history, not anything from the older TM drive. And TM is counting down until the next backup, which in my test, became the older drive. If you had told it to use only the older drive, then it would put you in a loop of needing the newer TM drive present. This is a PITA.
I was surprised that my instructions to the OP did not work, as for several years, I have been able to drill down through the folder hierarchy on older TM drives to find files. Since I do not encrypt my backups at home, and the OP could not drill down into the drive hierarchy, that was my inference to the possibility that the drive was encrypted. Although the OP had not stated the drive was encrypted, that alone does not discount the possibility.
