Can' t restore Time Machine backup (wrong password)

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Level 1

4 points

Can' t restore Time Machine backup (wrong password)

Long story short,

have been using Air M3 with Time Machine, keyboard+touchpad stopped working, sent to guaranty, in the meantime I need to keep working and bought a Mac mini, asked the apple helper and got the feedback I could restore it. Great!

I setup Mac mini, try to restore from timeMachine backup and keeps saying that the password is incorrect. I've tried all configurations of passwords I would use, and I'm 100% sure I would use the same from my laptop account on it.

What can I do? My guess is that my air m3 will be cleared so even if I wait I will not be able to use it to restore.

Mac mini, macOS 15.6

Posted on Aug 19, 2025 07:27 AM

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Answer 1

Owl-53

Level 10

100,219 points

Aug 19, 2025 07:43 AM in response to lemonsnek

When restoring files from an encrypted Time Machine backup, you'll be prompted to enter the password you created during the Initial setup on the M3 MacBook Air

You should have store your password in a secure location as macOS does not save it to the Keychain.

Op wrote " My guess is that my air m3 will be cleared so even if I wait I will not be able to use it to restore."

Unless you remember that Strong Password , sorry, you might be right

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