OS X Mountain Lion Portable Genius

Retrieving Information from Time Machine

Now that you know how to back up your system, it’s time to learn how to retrieve that information should you ever need to do so. Let’s see how to restore individual items and even an entire drive.

Restoring individual files

Time Machine lets you restore individual files and folders that you may have lost or of which you want to get previous versions. To do so, follow these steps:

1. Open Time Machine by clicking its icon in the Dock or press +Shift+A, and then double-click its icon in the Applications folder.

2. Time Machine opens and you see a Finder window, similar to that shown in Figure 14.13.

3. Use the timeline on the right side of the screen (or the arrows next to it) to navigate through time to the date the item you need was backed up.

4. Browse the files in the Finder window to find the item you want to retrieve.

5. Select the item in the Finder window and then click Restore in the bottom-right corner of the Time Machine window. The file is zipped forward in time to today and Time Machine closes. You have to admit, that’s one of the coolest things you’ve ever seen on a computer!

14.13 Traveling through time!

Restoring an entire drive

Time Machine lets you restore an entire drive, which, on its own, is worth the price of upgrading ...