How to restore files from Time Machine

Time Machine can bring back a deleted file, an older version of a document, or everything on a new Mac. This guide walks through the documented restore steps, how far back the backups reach, and the three stops: an encrypted backup needs its password, the backup drive has to mount, and a restore copies files rather than repairing a failing disk.

Written by Essential Data RecoveryPublished 2026-09-13Owner-reviewedRevision 1

A small brass hourglass beside a closed silver laptop and a portable backup drive on a pale oak desk in morning light

The file is gone, a bad save overwrote a good version, or you are sitting in front of a new or erased Mac with a Time Machine backup drive within reach. All three cases end the same way: the Mac reads the backup and copies back whatever you select. One rule comes first. A restore writes to the destination and repairs nothing, so if the Mac or disk you would restore onto has been acting up, copy whatever is already on it to a healthy drive before you restore anything. Then work down the page: single files and folders, a whole Mac, and the three stops at the end.^[1]

Restore individual files and folders

Apple's documented route starts in the folder the missing item lived in, not in the backup itself. You open a window showing that folder (or just sit at the desktop if the item lived there), open Time Machine, and step backward until the window shows the item as it was. Selections can include folders or the entire disk, and restored items return to their original location: a file that was in Documents goes back to Documents.^[1]

Restore files through the Time Machine interface

On your Mac, open a window for the item you want to restore, showing the folder it was in. If it was on the desktop, no window is needed.
Open Time Machine.
Use the arrows next to the Finder windows to move through your backups. The backup currently shown is highlighted in red in the timeline on the right.
When the window shows the item as it was, select one or more items to restore. Selections can include folders or your entire disk.
Click Restore. The items return to their original location.
If no backups appear to browse, the Mac is not reaching the backup disk. Stop and read the stops section at the end.

^[1]

Older versions of a single document

Two more Apple-documented routes cover smaller recoveries. Many apps offer File > Revert To > Browse All Versions, which shows a document's earlier Time Machine versions without leaving the app; Apple says many apps, not all. For a lost or deleted file whose name you know, search for it in a Finder window, then click the Time Machine icon in the menu bar and choose Browse Time Machine backups to run that search across the backups. The icon is switched on under System Settings > Control Center > Time Machine if it is missing.^[1][2]

Restore everything to a new or erased Mac

When the destination is a whole Mac rather than a file, the tool is Migration Assistant. Apple ships it with every Mac, both as a standalone app in the Utilities folder inside Applications and as part of Setup Assistant on a new or freshly erased Mac. The two Macs do not need to be running the same version of macOS. Migration Assistant moves documents, apps, user accounts, and settings, and Apple states it does not delete anything from the old Mac or replace macOS on the new one.^[3]

Bring a Time Machine backup onto a new Mac

Connect the Time Machine backup drive to the new Mac, or make sure the Mac can reach it.
If the Mac is new or freshly erased and setup is still running, choose the option to transfer from a Mac, Time Machine, or startup disk when Setup Assistant offers it.
If setup already finished, open Migration Assistant from the Utilities folder inside Applications instead.
Select the option to transfer from a Mac, Time Machine, or startup disk, then pick the backup you want.
Choose what to move across: documents, apps, user accounts, and settings.
Let the transfer finish. Nothing is deleted from the old Mac, and macOS on the new Mac stays as it is.

^[3]

What the backup holds, and how far back it reaches

A Time Machine backup covers the Mac's user files. Apple lists apps, music, photos, email, and documents as what it backs up automatically, framed with including, so read it as examples rather than an inventory. The schedule behind the timeline is fixed by default: hourly backups for the past 24 hours, daily backups for the past month, and weekly backups for all previous months, with the oldest deleted when the backup disk fills. Later backups are incremental, holding only the files that changed since the previous one. In macOS Ventura 13 and later the interval can be changed under Back up frequency in Time Machine Options. A file deleted last week sits in the daily backups, one deleted three months ago sits in the weeklies. A file that disappeared before any backup captured it has nothing to come back from.^[4]

Restoring from another Mac's backup

Backups made on one Mac are not locked to it. Apple documents Time Machine restores to the same Mac or a different Mac, and Migration Assistant explicitly accepts a Time Machine backup of an old Mac as the source for a new one. One more documented piece: when a backup drive moves to a Mac for the first time, Setup Assistant can claim backups made on another computer so they continue as this Mac's own. After that, the restore steps near the top of this page work unchanged: browse, select, restore.^[3][4]

Three stops to check before a restore

An encrypted Time Machine backup opens only with the backup password created when encryption was turned on, and Apple states you will need it if you later attempt to restore files from the backup. If the password is lost, the files inside cannot be restored, no matter how healthy the drive is. Find the password before anything else: nothing on this page can work around it.^[4]

Every route on this page starts the same way: the Mac connects to the backup disk. Apple notes that a message may appear while the Mac connects, and describes a pulsing tick mark as a backup still loading or validating, so a slow start is not a failure. A backup drive that never appears at all is different: no drive, no timeline to browse, nothing to restore from. That is the not-detected problem, and it needs its own troubleshooting before a restore can begin.^[1]

A restore is a copy: it reads files from the backup drive and writes them to the destination, and it repairs neither drive. Apple documents no repair behavior. Two consequences follow. If the backup drive is failing, a full restore can stall partway through. If the destination is the failing one, restoring piles your recovered files on a disk that cannot reliably hold them. In either case, copy files to a healthy disk first and treat the restore as a transfer, not a fix.^[1]

If there was never a backup, or the loss happened in the middle of something going wrong with the Mac, restoring is not the job in front of you. Start with what to do after data loss instead, and leave the backup drive untouched until you know whether it is part of the problem.