Time Machine and proper usage...

[GGL]

Hello everyone,

i am a new Mac user, 6 months now and counting. I have recently purchased a 2Tb SSD to backup using Time Machine. So far so good.
However, i have a few questions.

I cannot seem to search the Time Machine backups using spotlight or finder. I enter the Time Machine and try to search a file i know it is there but it does not find anything beyond the local present snapshot.

I can browse to it, and restore it, but that is would represent the happy case when i know where the file was. What is more, all tutorials on the web, be it youtube or otherwise they all browse to the file. Nobody searches :/

mention: i have alfred and spotlight does not have any privacy restrictions.

Is this how it is supposed to work?

All the best,
G.

 

[TorbenIbsen]

Time Machine does not produce old-fashioned backup file by file. - It makes INCREMENTAL backups. So the very first time a file is back'ed up there will be a regular file as a copy of the original. After that there will only be taken backup of the CHANGES made to that file.

Example: Suppose you create a file, perhaps a Pages or Numbers file and edit that file five times every 24 hours. - Within the 24 hour time frame you can restore any version of that file. Time Machine takes the original file and adds/deletes things which was changed in the time period from the original file and to the point in time you want your restored file to be like. After 24 hours the file compresses the changes a bit so you can recreate the file on the last status it had on every day.

So Time Machine builds the file (-version) you want on the fly when you restore it. Since a "delete" is also a change you can actually recreate old versions of a file which is deleted in the current status on your Mac.

That is why it does not make sense to locate a specific file on the Time Machine backup from "outside". You can only restore a situation or a file by using the Time Machine itself.

 

[Mike Boreham]

Hello everyone,

i am a new Mac user, 6 months now and counting. I have recently purchased a 2Tb SSD to backup using Time Machine. So far so good.
However, i have a few questions.

I cannot seem to search the Time Machine backups using spotlight or finder. I enter the Time Machine and try to search a file i know it is there but it does not find anything beyond the local present snapshot.

I can browse to it, and restore it, but that is would represent the happy case when i know where the file was. What is more, all tutorials on the web, be it youtube or otherwise they all browse to the file. Nobody searches :/

mention: i have alfred and spotlight does not have any privacy restrictions.

Is this how it is supposed to work?

All the best,
G.

Does this help:

Recover files using Time Machine and Spotlight on Mac

 

[GGL]

No. The moment i go to the step "browse time machine" the finder search box goes blank and throws me to the home folder.

Thank you. I wouldn't have posted, but i went through like the first ten google pages

 

[Mike Boreham]

No. The moment i go to the step "browse time machine" the finder search box goes blank and throws me to the home folder.

Thank you. I wouldn't have posted, but i went through like the first ten google pages

Yes I agree...that Apple article seems wrong....there is a big disconnect between steps 2 and 3 !

But what does seem to work is starting at Step 3.

"Browse Time Machine Backups" from the menubar drop down. Then enter text in the search field top right and enter then I could restore what I wanted from Time Machine.

If you have big TM backups it can take a minute or two for the backup to be available as indicated by solid red in the dates on the right hand edge.

 

[GGL]

This is all i get. I know the file "teacher identity.pdf" is in the backups. But the time windows just grey out and that is that. I get no results. I also cannot browse.

I suspect that the time machine is not indexed, but hell if i know how to do that.... That is why i am asking, since i am a noob, maybe this is intended behavior and i wouldn't know.

 

[Mike Boreham]

That is a Finder window.

I suggest you put TM in the menubar as my first screenshot in post#5 then you can click on it to get the Browse Time Machine backups screen in my second screenshot.