How to restore files from a Time Machine backup

If you backup your Mac using Time Machine, you can recover lost or delete files on your Mac. You can simply plug in your time machine back up hard drive and enter the time machine.

You can either choose to enter the time machine from a folder within your computer or from the desktop.

Choose a date in time from one of your previous backups. You can now try and find the file that you lost. Select the file and press restore. Time Machine will copy and paste that file to the original folder in your current folder.

And it's that easy to restore files from a Time Machine back up.

To set up the time machine backup for the first time, watch this video:

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[garyji]

What a clear, simple instruction. Thank you so much! I was able to restore more than 200 treasured photos from a recent backpacking trip. Well done!

[kevinforrest]

After looking absolutely everywhere for what seems a common problem, your post was enlightening. Thank you.

[velanche]

Hey thanks for the video; just what I needed. Never done a Time Machine backup before this year when I got my new M1 MacBook Pro. Today, Dropbox setup messed around with Documents folder and that was frustrating. I’m really glad that I can restore that folder, and the video makes it pretty easy. Appreciate the help!

[rosiemclean]

That was very clear. I’d like the same tutorial to restore photos.

[nnajioforobinna]

Hello and thanks so much for all the great videos that you put out. Please I downgraded my macOS from Sonoma to Ventura, and I am trying restore my MacBook Pro from the Time Machine backup, will it restore the Sonoma OS in my backup while restoring my Apps and Files? I only needed to restore my Apps and Files and not the Sonoma OS. Please how do I get to do that. Thanks and remain blessed.

[JayemelMusicUniverse]

Thank you so much for that neat tutorial, i almost lost some files i forgot to restore since i deleted them, so thank you for this. And to remember to unplug my external after a backup so it last longer down the road. Thanks!!

[WonderingAboutThat]

This is great! I may need to set this up. Thank you.

[chickadddee]

Great info, still in 2024. I heard we can't use this method to retrieve one photo, I wish we could!!!

[fabylee]

Thank you for the video. When I open Time machine it doesn't let me browse to select. Just today's file.

[rohitbrowsing]

Excellent video, easy to understand and quick to apply, thanks a lot

[JuneK]

This is SO helpful. Thank you so much. Whew....saved me!!

[beautifulleee]

Where would pictures be stored when trying to find them after back up ?

[dianeschuller]

Thank you for this great information and delivered in your natural way. I so appreciate you getting straight to the point. Very helpful.
I have one question. I'm trying to restore the photos in my 2021 folder because I accidentally deleted/removed 9 of them from there yesterday. When I go into that folder, then into Time Machine, hit restore, it asks me, "The location to which you’re restoring “2021” already contains an item with the same name. Do you want to replace it with the one you’re restoring?" I'm not sure what to do here. I don't know that I want to duplicate that entire folder but I do want to get back the nine images. Any suggestions?

[jayp]

Hi...When I click on the date on the right of the screen it doesn't go back to the date I selected...Any ideas would be greatly appreciated..Thanks...Jay..

[michaelscoots]

I recently upgraded my internal hard drive on my 2019 iMac bc the drive was faulty and couldn’t be repaired. Before doing so i backed everything to an external hard dive via time capsule. Now when rebooting the computer with Apple R and choosing to restore from time machine, it doesn’t show me a list of back ups. I tried running a disk repair but it didn’t seem to work. Can I start up the new computer and then retrieve everything another way (my files)? Thank you

[rapaent]

Thanks for the great video! Is there a way to restore an application fro TM? Thanks again. 👍😊

[protectionman]

How do you restore "Reminders" from time machine? All mine were erased from my Mac when I used iCloud, even though I told iCloud to make a copy to my Mac. I can see them on iCloud and tried restoring them from iCloud to my Mac, but without and success. So I figured I could get it from Time Machine, but I don't know where the Reminders data reside. Have any ideas?

[felixcat]

Cuestión. What about if you have and older system like tiger or leopard wen you back it up but want to try it on like said Yosemite or a never iversión in my case my data did not show off that’s why I’m so mad whith apple i could not recover my data

[scottearlsmithFTC]

Great video. You do awesome work. I deleted a number of videos from iPhoto after backing them up on a hard drive that I use exclusively for YouTube videos. That hard drive failed and a local tech company could not open it. Now when I go into my time machine to check another hard drive that I use specifically for backups, my iPhoto folder doesn't show up anywhere so I cant retrieve my missing videos. It appears time machine is not backing up my iPhoto file. I don't have it checked off as an exclusion in the options box. Any ideas what is going on?

[mackhair]

Mine doesn’t let me click the red backups?!