Once you have Time Machine set up and running, it normally does its thing invisibly without intruding on your work at all. And you can continue ignoring it until the time comes when you need to restore something—a missing file or folder, or a previous version of a file you still have. This is where Time Machine's fancy 3D "time warp" interface comes in, and you should try restoring some files now, whether you need them or not, partly to make sure your backup is working properly—but mostly for the experience of flying back through time!
If you notice that a file or folder is missing, or that you've accidentally changed it and need an older version, follow these steps to retrieve a backup from your Time Machine archive:
In the Finder, make sure the window that contains the item you want to restore (or the one that used to contain it, if it's been deleted) is frontmost—you can verify this by clicking anywhere in the window. (Not certain where the missing item was stored? Skip ahead to Restore Files and Folders Using Spotlight.)
Click the Time Machine icon in the Dock or choose Enter Time Machine from the Time Machine menu (
).The frontmost window moves to the center of the screen, and the screen's background changes to the starry "time warp" display, with additional copies of the window receding into the background (Figure 7-4 next page).
To locate the file or folder you want, do one of the following:
Near the bottom right corner of the screen, click the back arrow (the one pointing toward the center of the screen, or backward in time). Time Machine zooms back to the most recent backup in which that window's contents were different. Keep clicking to continue zooming back through previous versions of that window; click the forward arrow to move forward in time.
Use the controls along the right edge of the screen to jump to a particular backup. As you hover your pointer over the small horizontal lines, they zoom in to display the day, date, and time of the corresponding backup. Click any of these lines to jump right to that version of the window. (If you've just set up Time Machine, you won't see many dates here.)
If you're unsure whether a file is the one you want, click once to select it and press the Space bar to activate Quick Look, which gives you a live, full-size preview of the file. To close the Quick Look window, click the
icon in the upper left corner.Once you've found and selected the item you want to restore, decide whether you want to restore it to its original location or to a different location:
To restore to the original location, click the Restore button in the lower right of the screen. Time Machine immediately restores the selected item, and returns you to the Finder. (Time Machine may prompt you for an administrator password.)
Note
Double up: You can use this procedure even if you want to restore an older version of a file but keep the current version. After you click Restore and the Finder reappears, you'll see an alert asking whether you want to replace the existing file, keep both copies (in which case the one already in that location is renamed with "(original)" at the end), or keep the original (thus canceling the restoration).
To restore to a different location from the original, choose Restore file name To from the pop-up Action menu (
), navigate where you want the file to
go, and click Choose.
If you decide against restoring any files, instead click the Cancel button in the lower left corner of the screen.
Although you can, from within the Time Machine screen, navigate around your computer manually, you could spend a lot of time searching for a file at different times in different locations on your disk if you don't know where it is. No worries: Spotlight to the rescue!
If you know something about a missing file or folder, such as a word in its title or its contents, you can use Spotlight to find it within your Time Machine backups. Follow these steps:
Click the Time Machine icon in the Dock or choose Enter Time Machine from the Time Machine menu (
). The screen switches to the Time Machine
display.Type something into the Spotlight search field in the toolbar of the window, optionally specifying additional search criteria.
Using the back and forward arrows or the controls on the right of the screen, navigate to an earlier point in time. Each time you move to another backup, the Spotlight window changes to reflect the results of the search at the time that backup was performed.
When you find the desired file, select it and click Restore. Time Machine copies it to its original location. (To restore to a different location, choose Restore "File Name" To from the pop-up Action menu (
), navigate to the new location, and click
Choose.)
TIME MACHINE AND SPOTLIGHT
Spotlight always maintains an index of your Time Machine disk so you can search in your backups. You may be tempted to prevent Spotlight from indexing that disk by adding it to the Privacy list in the Spotlight preference pane, but don't bother. For one thing, it doesn't work—Spotlight keeps indexing your Time Machine disk even if it's on the list. But this is nothing to worry about, because Spotlight searches don't normally display matching items on your Time Machine disk except when you're on the Time Machine screen.
In public demos long before Leopard shipped, Apple made a big deal about the fact that Time Machine can find and restore not only entire files in the Finder, but even individual items within applications—such as pictures in iPhoto, contacts in Address Book, and messages in Mail. But to the best of my knowledge (as of mid-2008) those are the only three applications with built-in Time Machine support. Not even iTunes or iCal, for which this feature would seem a natural fit. (Although Apple previously stated that third-party software would also be able to use this feature, the necessary information hasn't yet been revealed to outside developers.) All this strikes me as weird. Perhaps it's technically challenging to make software work directly with Time Machine. But I hope that more applications support it soon, because that would make Time Machine that more useful. In the meantime, your choices for in-application restoration are limited.
To restore one or more contacts in Address Book:
In Address Book, switch to any view in which the contact you're looking for should appear—for example, a search that should bring up the contact.
Click the Time Machine icon in the Dock or choose Enter Time Machine from the Time Machine menu (
). Address Book becomes the center of the
"time warp" screen.Using the back and forward arrows, or the navigation controls on the right side of the screen, move to one of your backups.
Select one or more contacts and click Restore; or, to restore all the contacts from that backup, click Restore All.
Address Book restores the selected contacts; if you clicked Restore All, it merges the set from your backup with your current set of contacts (with, I must point out, the possibility of some duplicates).
To restore one or more photos in iPhoto '08 or later:
In iPhoto, navigate to a view (for example, an event, album, or search) in which the photo you're looking for should appear.
Click the Time Machine icon in the Dock or choose Enter Time Machine from the Time Machine menu (
). iPhoto becomes the center of the "time
warp" screen.Using the back and forward arrows, or the navigation controls on the right side of the screen, move to one of your backups.
Select one or more photos and click Restore; or, to restore all the photos from that backup, click Restore All.
Time Machine tells iPhoto to reimport the selected photos, placing them in a new, untitled event. If any of the photos you're restoring are duplicates of ones in the current set, iPhoto asks whether it should continue importing (adding a second copy of those photos).
To restore messages, notes, or to-do items in Mail:
In Mail, navigate to any view in which the item you're looking for should appear—say, your Inbox, another mailbox, or the Notes folder.
Click the Time Machine icon in the Dock or choose Enter Time Machine from the Time Machine menu (
). Mail becomes the center of the "time
warp" screen.Using the back and forward arrows, or the navigation controls on the right side of the screen, move to one of your backups.
Note
What's all this, then?With certain types of email accounts, when you activate Time Machine, you may notice lots of additional messages in your Inbox—not only in past backups but even when you're in the "Now" view. These are messages you've filed or deleted, and may include spam you thought was gone forever. I first thought these were messages that were marked for deletion but not yet deleted; that turns out not to be the case. I have not yet been able to tell exactly why some deleted or filed messages—but not others—mysteriously show up in Time Machine. I presume it's a bug.
Select one or more items and click Restore.
Mail creates a new local mailbox (in the "On My Mac" section of the sidebar), and inside that, a second mailbox called Recovered Messages; the restored items are put in this mailbox. From there, you can drag them to another location. If you later restore more items in Mail without first deleting the Recovered Messages mailbox, Mail creates yet another mailbox, Recovered Messages 1—incrementing the number each time. (Not the most intuitive system, eh?)
Ordinarily, you'll probably want to restore files from your own Mac that were backed up using Time Machine. However, if you connect (directly or over the network) to a Time Machine disk containing backups of other computers, you can use Time Machine to browse those backups and restore files from them to your computer.
To browse another computer's backups:
Make sure the volume with the backups is mounted in the Finder.
Right-click (or Control-click) the Time Machine icon in the Dock and choose Browse Other Time Machine Disks from the menu.
In the window that appears, select the backup you want to use and click Use Selected Disk. The "time warp" screen appears.
Click the back arrow to show the most recent backup; in that window, you should see a folder representing the hard disk of the computer whose backups you're viewing. Navigate inside that folder to find specific files; then, use the back and forward arrows and the controls on the side of the screen to select older versions.
If you've experienced a major disk crash or other catastrophe that requires you to restore an entire disk, rather than merely individual files or folders, follow these steps:
Make sure the drive containing your Time Machine archive is attached to your Mac:
If you normally back up to a drive connected to another Mac, I suggest disconnecting the drive from that computer and plugging it directly into the Mac you want to restore.
If you back up to a Time Capsule, I suggest connecting to it with an Ethernet cable, rather than a wireless AirPort connection, during this process, as that'll speed it up.
Locate your Leopard Install DVD and insert it in your Mac's optical drive. (If you're using a MacBook Air without an external SuperDrive, follow the instructions included with the computer to start up from the Leopard Install DVD in another computer's optical drive using Remote Disc, and skip Step 3.)
Restart (or turn on) your Mac. Immediately after you hear the startup chime, press and hold the C key until you see the gray Apple logo on the screen.
Click through the language selection screen.
When the Welcome screen appears, choose Utilities > Disk Utility.
Select your computer's internal disk in the list on the left.
On the Erase view, click Erase, and confirm that you really want to do that. Disk Utility erases the disk. Quit Disk Utility.
Choose one of the following three paths:
If you're restoring from a directly connected drive or from a Time Capsule connected via Ethernet: skip to Step 9.
If you're restoring from a Time Capsule and connect wirelessly:
If you're restoring from a drive connected to another Mac on your network:
Make sure you know the IP address of the Mac that's sharing the Time Machine drive. To find this out, go to that Mac, open the Sharing pane of System Preferences, and select File Sharing. Underneath the text "File Sharing: On," you'll see a message along the lines of "Other users can access your computer at afp://192.168.0.11/ or browse for 'Mac mini'." The string of numbers after "afp://" is the IP address.
Back on the Mac you're trying to restore, if you connect wirelessly (rather than by Ethernet) to the Mac with your Time Machine backup, go to the AirPort (
) menu in the menu bar and choose
your AirPort network. Enter a password if prompted.Choose Utilities > Terminal. In the Terminal window that opens, enter the following (all on one line, with no space following the slash after the address, but with a space before "
/Volumes"):mount_afp afp://user-name:password@address/volume-name/VolumesSubstitute your user name and password for that Mac (shown in green, if you're viewing it in color), the IP address you learned in Substep a (shown in purple), and the name of the volume on which your Time Machine backups are stored (blue).
Quit Terminal.
Choose Utilities > Restore System from Backup, and click Continue.
Select your Time Machine backup volume, and click Continue again.
If the Time Machine disk has backups for more than one Mac, choose the one you want from the Restore From pop-up menu. Then select the particular backup you want to restore—likely the most recent one (the first one in the list). Click Continue.
On the Select a Destination screen, select your internal disk. Click Restore. If prompted, confirm that you really do want to restore your data.
Time Machine restores your data. When it finishes, follow the instructions to restart your computer.
Note
Back to square one: Once you've restarted after restoring your data, Time Machine will run again, but starting from scratch with a new, full backup. That is to say, Time Machine essentially ignores all your previous backups. Apple claims this is "normal" behavior (http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1338), though it may not be what you expect or want.
If you ever need to restore files and Time Machine isn't working for some reason—or if you need to get at your backups on a computer running Tiger—you can browse the contents of your Time Machine disk in the Finder, and then drag any file to your Desktop (or another folder) to copy it to your main disk. But be aware that Time Machine stores files on your backup disk in two different ways.
When you connect a drive locally, Time Machine stores backups for your computer in a folder like this:
/Volumes/volume-name/Backups.backupdb/computer-name
And, inside that folder, you'll find a date- and time-stamped folder for each individual backup Time Machine is currently storing.
By contrast, when Time Machine backs up a computer over a net-work, it puts a sparse bundle disk image at the top level of the volume with a name that includes your computer's name and the MAC address (a unique identification string) of its built-in Ethernet card:
/Volumes/Backups/MacBook_001a6291024c.sparseimage
If you double-click that disk image to mount it in the Finder, you'll see the list of folders representing each stored Time Machine backup.
In any case, although you can open files directly on your backup disk, I strongly suggest avoiding that; if you make changes directly to the files you've backed up, you undo part of the value of having backups. Always copy files to your main disk before changing them.