Restore some files to new Mac using Time Machine

Hey again! Well I’ve transferred data that way thousands of times over the years and have never had an issue with corruption, otherwise I’d never suggest it.

Looking at the other remarks, perhaps I shouldn’t be doing it that way, and I’ve just been lucky all these years 🙂.

The problem with restoring the whole user folder, is, many times the problem files are in the hidden Library which comes with the User folder, so I’d have to say if you don’t use Finder, using the Time Machine interface (“Enter Time Machine”) is the way to go, as mentioned before. Considering the new Mac/User has permissions to it etc). Not sure if you still have the source Mac, but if it’s not a lot of data you can also use File Sharing/iCloud or other cloud services, etc. if you need to, or, also like said before Migration Assistant so there are many options. Hope one works out!

I guess this article which most closely matches manually moving data is this, but it has been “Archived” and no longer updated, the fact it says OSX is a giveaway:

Manually migrating data from another Mac:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202910

This article might help if you haven’t seen it:

Restore Items backed up with Time Machine:

https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/restore-files-mh11422/mac

Use Time Machine to restore deleted or older files:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT209152

Although being a new Mac, you might not have permissions to do that, I guess it depends.

And of course:

How to move your data to a new Mac:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204350

But as in the first article to manually move data, I don’t suppose you still have the original Mac as well do you? If so then you can follow that article to manually move data to the external drive then onto the new Mac, bypassing Time Machine, just another thought. Sorry to hear restoring the full backup messed the computer up, hang in there, once the work is done, it should be running like a champ!

You can't restore files from a Time Machine backup to your Mac via the Finder. It must be done from within Time Machine. For example to restore all of the file in your documents folder:

1 - go to that folder in the Finder and open it.

2 - enter Time Machine

3 - you should be in the Documents folder in Time Machine. Go back in time to the date from which you want to restore from.

4 - do a Select All (⌘+A) and click on the Restore button.

5 - do Steps 1 thru 4 for each folder you want to restore.

The following screenshot is a graphical representation of how to restore a selected file (in this case a Photos library):

Hey Scott F! Yes you can do that! I often recommend that in situations, especially when the source Mac has performance and other issues.

—Plug in the backup drive.

—Open Finder

—Hit File > New Finder Window

—Hit Finder > Preferences > Sidebar

—Put a check next to your Home folder

—Move the Windows side by side (As an example).

—On the left window click on the Time Machine backup

—On the right window click on your Home folder (Both in the sidebar).

On the left window (The backup), Open Backups.backup folder

—navigate to:

”MyMac’sName” > “TheDateOfThisBackup” > Macintosh HD Data (If The backup was done on Catalina) > Users > YourUserName.

On the right Finder window, select on the top “Go” > “Home”.

Now you’ll have two windows showing your Home folder, one from your backup, and the other, your current, new Home folder with nothing in it usually.

I’d recommend not moving over the entire folders and replacing the new ones. But rather:

—Open the Desktop folder on the backup, Select All > Copy. (Or copy/paste/drag selected files).

—In the other Finder window, open the new Desktop folder Edit > Paste. (Or drag, which only copies the file doesn’t move it, but I still recommend copy/paste),

This will move all the Desktop data from the backup to the new Mac.

You can repeat the steps for the other main Home folders from old to new. This prevents transferring all hidden and system/app files, that may have been causing problems, to the new Mac.

You can do the same process for Apps:

Macintosh HD > Applications, move from left to right, (Although many times we’ll known apps require that they still be reinstalled, but many allow to transfer).

So that’s it! Copy the contents of a folder on the backup, and paste the contents in the corresponding new folder!

Some files, as you said, like settings and preferences, are hidden though if you know where to get them.

To show hidden files:

When in the Home folder on one of the Finder windows, on the keyboard press:

Shift Command Period (.). You’ll notice the hidden files appear. One of the being the ~”Library”, this folder holds some app and user data including:

iOS backups.

Mailboxes that were stored “On This Mac”

Safari bookmarks

Preferences for every application in your user folder, etc.

So if you are looking to also restore specific data like that, you can un-hide the files, and let us know what else you need to transfer.

But for the most part, the bulk of the main data, minus the in needed stuff, that’s the way to go, hope that helps!

In the future use Migration Assistant in Applications/Utilities. Open it and select Time Machine. Restore at least the user accounts.

Never use Finder to access the Time Machine backup. Always use the Time Machine interface or Migration Assistant. You probably bricked the backup files as well as the MacOS.

Have a nice day.

I was concerned that you were going to access your Time Machine backup with Finder. That is what could brick your backup. If you want to restore your user account use Migration Assistant.

Have a nice day.

Gotcha! Well if it was something that happened suddenly, I suppose you can just restore from the backup date when it was working just fine, then if you need to pull the newer files the other way, or from iCloud, etc. it should work okay, (Unless when set up as new, no files restored and no accounts syncing, and still messed up, it’s possible the hardware is affected and needs repair). Hope it’s not the latter! That’s usually not the case though, cheers.

Hold down the option key, and select browse other back up discs from the time machine menu.

Find your back up on the external drive and then go through and restore folders and files from that.