Searching & Restoring files from TM Backup

J

JoshJ


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MBP Late 2014, 2.2 GHz Intel Core i7, 16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3, Yosemite 10.10.3
Hey guys.
I have recently reinstalled Yosemite to clean my mac as a couple of my applications (logic in particular) were acting up.

I now need to use my Time Machine backup as an extension of my MacHD, to search across & restore files from until I've copied all my data back to the MacHD.

I dont want Time Machine to write over my previous backup so I have switched time machine off. This unfortunately results in me not being able to enter the Time Machine interface to search/restore files (I can't move back in time).
I could suffice with just searching the TM drive & restoring files via Finder (just using it like i would a regular external data source) but this also seems to render few (if any) search results in Finder. Is there a reason for this? Are TM backups locked/unsearchable in some way?
 
vansmith

vansmith

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Time Machine, like a lot of other Apple made apps, stores files in some odd hierarchy. They aren't really all that searchable outside of Time Machine.

There's a very early beta version of a piece of software here that will do what you want. There's also this. I haven't tried either of these but it might be worth exploring them.
 
M

MacInWin

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JoshJ said:
Hey guys.
I have recently reinstalled Yosemite to clean my mac as a couple of my applications (logic in particular) were acting up.

I now need to use my Time Machine backup as an extension of my MacHD, to search across & restore files from until I've copied all my data back to the MacHD.

I dont want Time Machine to write over my previous backup so I have switched time machine off. This unfortunately results in me not being able to enter the Time Machine interface to search/restore files (I can't move back in time).
I could suffice with just searching the TM drive & restoring files via Finder (just using it like i would a regular external data source) but this also seems to render few (if any) search results in Finder. Is there a reason for this? Are TM backups locked/unsearchable in some way?
Click to expand...
TM won't overwrite your previous backup as long as there is space on the TM Drive. Go ahead and turn TM back on, go to the backup you want to restore, find the files you want and restore them. That's what TM is for, after all.
 
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JoshJ


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MBP Late 2014, 2.2 GHz Intel Core i7, 16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3, Yosemite 10.10.3
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