Time Machine: restoring mailbox, can't see restore button

[Boogalooru]

Apologies if this is an incredibly stupid question. I'm trying to restore my inbox in Mail. I navigate to the inbox in the Mail app, click on Time Machine in the dock. It all appears to work and says 'click restore to recover your inbox'. However, I can't for the life of me see the restore button. In fact, apart from the Mail window, I can't see any evidence of TM at all.

Could someone post a screenshot to show me what it's meant to look like?

Thanks.

 

[TJones]

Click the word restore that is along the bottom to the right of the screen.

 

[Boogalooru]

Still can't see it. This is what I'm seeing - http://img441.imageshack.us/img441/8868/mailtm.jpg

 

[Inconsequential]

That isn't right.

There should be a bar along the bottom with Restore and Cancel and the background should be stars.

Something is broken or you haven't given it enough time, mine took a few seconds to load the data before bring up the timemachine background.

 

[Boogalooru]

I thought it might be time, so I gave it a good few minutes until nothing else changed, but still got that.

Just to check my steps I'm doing this:

1) Click on Mail applicaition
2) Click on inbox
3) Click on Time Machine in the Dock
4) Mail app comes to the forefront and as is in the picture.

 

[TJones]

You should be seeing this along the bottom of the screen.

 

[Howard Brazee]

Neither my Mac nor my wife's Mac are showing the restore button.

 

[BrianBaughn]

I suggest you start a new thread with exactly what you're trying to do. A lot has changed in 6 years.

 

[JohnDS]

The link to your image is not showing. Can you upload it here using the Upload a File button in the reply dialogue box instead of posting a URL?

You are pulling down the Time Machine Menu to "Enter Time Machine" and getting the "Star Wars" page with the timeline on the right? Can you post a full screen shot?
[doublepost=1479131213][/doublepost]UPDATE: According to this article: https://www.macissues.com/2014/12/07/how-to-manually-restore-your-mail-folder-from-time-machine/ the Restore button in not available to restore a mailbox. The article provides a work-around.

 

[BrianBaughn]

The link to your image is not showing. Can you upload it here using the Upload a File button in the reply dialogue box instead of posting a URL?

You are pulling down the Time Machine Menu to "Enter Time Machine" and getting the "Star Wars" page with the timeline on the right? Can you post a full screen shot?
[doublepost=1479131213][/doublepost]UPDATE: According to this article: https://www.macissues.com/2014/12/07/how-to-manually-restore-your-mail-folder-from-time-machine/ the Restore button in not available to restore a mailbox. The article provides a work-around.

The original post is from 2010.

 

[Howard Brazee]

How do we get a screen print of the image we get with Time Machine open? command-shift-4 doesn't work

 

[JohnDS]

Right. Of course. Did not notice. Hate it when that happens.

I will wait to see if the Howard starts his own thread. In the meantime, for completeness here is another possibility:

http://pondini.org/TM/15m.html
[doublepost=1479131726][/doublepost]Howard, you really should have started your own thread instead of tacking on to an old one. At this point we don't know what it is you are trying to do and whether it is the same as the original poster. What is it you are trying to restore? If it is a mailbox, see my posts 9 and 12.
[doublepost=1479131798][/doublepost]Command-Shift-3 should work for a screenshot while in the Time Machine Window.

 

[Howard Brazee]

 

[JohnDS]

If that was a full screenshot using command-option-3, it would appear that the window is too large and the Restore button is off screen. Go into your display prefs and reset your screen resolution to "native".

 

[Howard Brazee]

That's the problem. Clicking on "Default for Display" will make it visible - provided I have a microscope to read the small type. To me that's a bug that can be worked around.

 

[Howard Brazee]

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[airlied]

just navigate to backup folders thensearch the data manually

 

[macsrwe]

That's the problem. Clicking on "Default for Display" will make it visible - provided I have a microscope to read the small type. To me that's a bug that can be worked around.

I'm having exactly the same problem today on a Mac Mini running Sierra. I *am* using "default for display" (which is 1080p for the display I have hooked up). There is no "native" Apple screen for a Mac Mini. The restore button is nowhere. The uploaded image is a full-screen screen-shot.

I desperately need to retrieve these old mail messages and their enclosures. (Files are one thing, but has the poster who wrote "do it by hand from the backup volume" ever tried to recover mail messages and their enclosures by hand?)

There's no menu bar available, so that workaround is out. Does anybody know of any "keyboard shortcuts" that activate the buttons in Time Machine?

Sigh. I Remember when Macintoshes "just worked." At this point, I'm fully expecting a fall Apple announcement for a "zero-button mouse" to complement their new zero-button Time Machine.
[doublepost=1500841392][/doublepost]Oh, this is precious. I honestly don't know whether or not to feel stupider than the guy who programmed this user-hostile UI.

If your Mail window happens to be set to occupy most of the height of the screen, the image of that window in Time Machine will COVER the Restore button! If you make the window shorter, then invoke Time Machine, the button is visible. Similarly, you can resize the large window smaller while within Time Machine, and the buttons will appear. Having done so, you can no longer resize the window to cover the buttons again… but Time Machine fails to make the same check at time of invocation to determine whether the buttons are covered.

Curiously, it DOES perform this check for Finder windows and adjusts their size... but not Mail windows. Even more curiously, temporary image flashes suggest that it DOES shrink the Mail window just before throwing up its main display, but then displays the original unshrunk version anyway. That would lead me to suspect that some of the other special "inside the app" Time Machine cases (like Contacts, iTunes, iPhoto, etc.) may exhibit the same problem.

I don't remember which release replaced the "big black bar at the bottom" with the current modest translucent buttons (probably the same one that removed that god-awful remote-service-hostile animated Star Wars background image), but I suspect the big black bar never let itself be covered.

Three weeks of coffee duty are strongly indicated for somebody in Cupertino.