I got a new MacBook Pro a couple of weeks ago and the standard setup process gave it the same name (Norris's MacBook Pro) as my old one, which was still running High Sierra. I had been running Time Machine periodically on the old one, making backups to a 3TB Time Capsule. Because almost all the files I care about are in iCloud, I elected NOT to try to transfer or restore anything from the Time Capsule during initial setup of the new machine. Instead I just allowed iCloud to sync everything to the new Mac, which worked well, figuring I could do selective restores of individual non-iCloud files later. Today I activated Time Machine on the new Mac. Time Machine said I had zero previous backups for the current (new) machine and started making an initial one. My question is, how can I see the files which Time Machine backed up from my old Mac of the same name? The Time Capsule disk had about 2.4TB free out of 3TB when I first connected my new Mac, so I think the files are on there, I just can't see them from the new Mac. How should I proceed? I don't have the old Mac anymore, when I bought the new Mac I had the old one wiped and gave it to a friend.
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New MacBook Pro can't see old Time Machine backups
- Thread starter NorrisM
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I tried that. The dialog window that appears doesn’t list any other disks. I’m using the same disk as with the old Mac. The backups for the old Mac must be in a different folder, which I guess I can’t see because I am connecting with a different Mac. That’s my guess anyway.
Yes, my username and password are the same as they were on the old Mac. But I suspect that Time Machine backups are tied to a particular machine in some way that is more specific than the user-friendly name of the machine, such as serial number or Mac address. That would be the only secure way to do things.
