Restoring Specific Files on a Mac using Time Machine

I ran into an issue with restoring stuff using time machine, which I regularly use for backups. I wiped my computer due to it having some issues, but made sure to do a full backup with time machine to an external drive. Upon reinstalling OSX, I chose to restore contents from Time Machine, and everything looked good, but the problems still persisted. I ended up finding out I would just have to move files/folders/apps over manually from the drive to my new install of OSX, but wasn’t sure how to do it.

I ended up reinstalling OSX, and then mounting the drive and exploring the contents in finder. I was able to go into the attached drive, then the Last Backup folder, and from there I was presented with a folder layout of my entire old drive. I was then able to navigate to the /Users folder and /Application folder and move over what i needed to to my new install.

One thing to keep in mind, is the permissions may be different from your files on the drive and the fresh install of OSX. I was able to get around this by going into terminal and copying the files as root, and changing the permissions via chmod.

1. sudo su -;
2. cd /Volumes/<whatever your time machine backup drive is;
3. cp <files> <dst>;
4. chmod currentuser:staff <copied files>