Can’t access old Time Machine Backups

To understand what is going on I need some details.

1. What OS is the new computer running?

2. What OS was the old computer running?

3. Are the Time Machine backups stored on a Time Capsule or a local external hard disk?

4. Now a bit more complicated..

The story you are telling us is sending bad vibes..

You stopped using old Mac in Jan 2018.

Did you inherit the old backup on the new computer? (ie do you have two separate Time Machine backups.. one for old computer which should have ceased in Jan 2018.. and a new one started.. or do you have just one backup.. and you never archived the old backup to protect it).

When you delete items from the Mac.. Time Machine will proceed to delete that item from the backup.

Not a problem, I thought - I can just go into Time Machine and cycle back to an older backup where the library definitely is still existing.

Many people think this.. but it is not true.. files deleted from the Mac will be deleted from the TM backup. There is a complex algorithm about how long it waits.. please remember this into the future.. always CLONE.. do not expect Time Machine backups to archive old files deleted from your Mac.. it does not work that way.

You have two choices.

1. Open the backup in Finder and go back to date before you deleted the library.

This may not be possible without fixing permissions depending on OS version you are were and are now running.

2. Bite the bullet and do a full restore to a USB drive.

What you are doing here is changing from using migration assistant to using Setup Assistant from Recovery.

Get a suitably sized USB drive. Even if it is Mac formatted I would reformat it on your mac to ensure it has EFI partition.

Boot your mac to recovery and use Time Machine setup assistant to go back to date prior to deletion.. and do a full system recovery.. MAKE SURE YOU USE THE USB as target.

It is older but there is a fairly long post I did on how to do this.

Re: Migration Assistant Help

If you upgraded the computer to Mojave and continued to use Time Machine without any attempt to preserve the backup prior to the upgrade.. then chaos can ensue.

As commented above.. Time Machine does not work as archive software. Once you delete files on the Mac they will also be deleted from backup .. the question is when.. and it is complicated. But since the annual OS updates started it has become a lot harder. I wish Apple included some sort of warning message to preserve backups before using them in the new OS. It would solve 90% of the problems people have.

Your choices are now to dig down into the actual backup using Finder. So mount the TC disk, open the sparsebundle and then click on Time Machine Backups you will see on the left pane. Keep digging down until you get to the dated folders for each backup and dig into the one you need and see if the files you require are available or not.. if not check dates either side.. It can take a fair bit of time to find particular files as the TM backup uses a complex series of links.

No luck doing it that way.. I suspect nothing else is going to work. However you can try creating a recovery disk.. the method is described carefully in this thread.. although a bit out of date.

Migration Assistant Help

Look at the method further down in the thread about using setup assistant from recovery partition .. not migration.

Although well out of date now Pondini is a great resource.

See the first two articles here. On the difference between TM and clone.

And how TM actually works.

http://www.baligu.com/pondini/TM/Home.html

To answer the question.. TM is a backup of your Mac.. not an archive. When you delete files on your Mac.. Time Machine will not keep those deleted files in the backup forever. Remember that file is no longer on the source disk.. so there is no reason it should be on the target.

http://www.baligu.com/pondini/TM/20.html

Some of the details are no longer relevant since the guy who wrote the site died a few years ago.. he was a big contributor here.. but the theory is still relevant and no one has done a better job making sense of Time Machine.

As a btw.. for many of us here Time Machine has become highly unreliable to network targets. The rot really set in at Sierra with High Sierra much worse.

On a local disk it is quite different.. but we do recommend to people on Sierra and later that a secondary clone backup with a suitable software (SuperDuper, Carbon Copy Cloner) is well worth the effort.. especially as CCC can do a backup to a local disk as a bootable clone.

Good to hear you got your files back. This discussion area is mainly for Time Capsule.. ie hardware router and only really deal with Time Machine ie backup software on the Mac to help people .. normally using them both..

Time Machine is so highly integrated into the OS it is also a question that is often answered in the relevant OS section.

I have a similar problem. If I enter time machine I can see a backup dating from a few weeks ago, but when I click it, nothing happens. If I check the time machine disk it tells me that I have back ups from a few weeks ago.

To answer the unasked question and provide some support we need full details.

In particular, what is the Time Machine target being used?

ie a Time Capsule or other network drive.. or local disk?

And what OS are you running?

Have you upgraded OS?

Did you inherit or continue to use the same backup?

Do not be surprised if you upgraded to Mojave that you cannot go back before the update.

Then you need to discover if the backups are still really there.. but hidden due to permissions issues.. as per the OP on this thread.. Although Apple claims there are NO PERMISSIONS ISSUES any more.. this is totally and completely untrue when it comes to backups.

And then you can just have nasty effects from Anti-Virus, security, adware, 3rd party disk utilities etc.. loads of software can block access to backups.. but AV is most common issue.

Thanks for the reply, and apologies for the delay in getting back.

The Time Machine target is a Time Capsule. I am running 10.14, so perhaps that explains why I can't access the earlier backups, even if I can see them when I enter Time Machine. If I scroll up and down the calendar on the far right some backups are indicated in bright red - I can access those, others are in a faded red - I can't access those, and some earlier dates have no red color, but remain grey (even if I should have backups from those dates). I'm interested in accessing one of the backups that is faded red. I have no installed AV software.

Thanks, that worked. I was able to get into the Time Capsule disk and find the file I was looking for. I still don't understand why the Time Machine application doesn't allow you to see what you can see by connecting to the disk directly.

You're right, it would be helpful if Apple informed you of the consequences of upgrading on your time machine backups.

Thanks again, you've been a great help

what is your model and os ?