Is there a way to restore a local snapshot?

[andrewtm]

I somehow deleted all of my files on my computer. Luckily there's a local snapshot saved for the day before it was deleted and I was wondering if it's possible to restore your computer from a local snapshot. I know it's possible to restore files from it but is it possible to restore the whole computer from it?

Thanks!

 

[jdphoto]

I somehow deleted all of my files on my computer. Luckily there's a local snapshot saved for the day before it was deleted and I was wondering if it's possible to restore your computer from a local snapshot. I know it's possible to restore files from it but is it possible to restore the whole computer from it?

Thanks!

Do you mean a time machine snapshot? If so, yes. You can boot from either the recovery partition or a Yosemite USB stick and there is an option to restore from time machine there. Should do the whole system.

 

[simonsi]

I somehow deleted all of my files on my computer. Luckily there's a local snapshot saved for the day before it was deleted and I was wondering if it's possible to restore your computer from a local snapshot. I know it's possible to restore files from it but is it possible to restore the whole computer from it?

Thanks!

Do you mean you only have a local snapshot or you have a TM backup drive that was up to date except for the snapshot on your machine?

You cannot restore a whole machine from just the local snapshot (think about the space required...), the snapshot is only changes since the last TM backup to the TM drive.

As far as I know you will have to let TM complete another backup run, which will move the local snapshot to the TM drive, you can then restore your data via TM, up to and including the whole machine. One point to note is that it will probably restore your machine to the latest "data deleted" state if you do a complete restore, you would then need to go back via TM to the last "with data" snapshot time and restore what you deleted from there.

 

[andrewtm]

Do you mean you only have a local snapshot or you have a TM backup drive that was up to date except for the snapshot on your machine?

You cannot restore a whole machine from just the local snapshot (think about the space required...), the snapshot is only changes since the last TM backup to the TM drive.

As far as I know you will have to let TM complete another backup run, which will move the local snapshot to the TM drive, you can then restore your data via TM, up to and including the whole machine. One point to note is that it will probably restore your machine to the latest "data deleted" state if you do a complete restore, you would then need to go back via TM to the last "with data" snapshot time and restore what you deleted from there.

Okay so maybe you could help me here.

I would like to restore my files from a local snapchat on 08 DEC 2014. My latest actual Time Machine backup was on 05 AUG 2014. I would just want to restore the files from the snapshot if this is possible. Like the Messages/email archives etc.

 

[simonsi]

Okay so maybe you could help me here.

I would like to restore my files from a local snapchat on 08 DEC 2014. My latest actual Time Machine backup was on 05 AUG 2014. I would just want to restore the files from the snapshot if this is possible. Like the Messages/email archives etc.

Have you tried going "Inton Time Machine" from its menubar? If it is a usable snapshot I think TM will show you there....

 

[andrewtm]

Have you tried going "Inton Time Machine" from its menubar? If it is a usable snapshot I think TM will show you there....

When I try going into time machine and restoring the files it says "Library" or "Desktop" can't be modified because it's an OS X File.

What I've done is manually dragged the contents of each old file into the new folder. This still leaves the problems of not having message archives and my old settings. Is there a way to copy over all of this info?

Update: I found that I have under User/Library/Messages and Attachments folder but no archive folder?

 

[simonsi]

Sorry no ideas

 

[Weaselboy]

I somehow deleted all of my files on my computer. Luckily there's a local snapshot saved for the day before it was deleted and I was wondering if it's possible to restore your computer from a local snapshot. I know it's possible to restore files from it but is it possible to restore the whole computer from it?

Thanks!

No way are you going to be able to restore the whole thing from local backups. When you delete a file with TM on, those deleted files go into a hidden folder called /.Mobilebackups .

I think the best you can hope for is to show hidden files then copy the contents of that folder off to an external, then wipe the drive and install the OS. Then manually copy back what you can from the external.

 

[simonsi]

Luckily there's a local snapshot saved for the day

Just to be clear, that snapshot isn't a snapshot of your machine, nor all your files, it is only a snapshot of chenges to those files since the TM drive was last connected and backed up to.

So there may be something or almost nothing of your data files there, it depends on the changes if any you made since the previous TM drive backup.