Resolved Restoring iMessages

[Silly John Fatty]

Hello!

After having done a fresh install of my Mac, I’m slowly restoring various stuff. One thing I’d like to restore now are my conversations in “Messages”. As far as I know they’re stored in the “Messages” folder which is located in the user library.

And that’s the problem… how do I get there? Without using terminal codes to show hidden folders/files, etc.?

I can go in the time machine menu, then browse my way to my user folder, but I can’t get into the library folder.

Looking for a “normal” way to do it here!

 

[ricede]

Hold down the Option /Alt key while clicking on 'Go' in the Finder menubar.

You will see Library there - click on it & it will open user/library in your Finder window.

 

[Silly John Fatty]

Hold down the Option /Alt key while clicking on 'Go' in the Finder menubar.

You will see Library there - click on it & it will open user/library in your Finder window.

Yeah I know of this trick, but how do I use it when I’m in Time Machine? There’s no menubar when you’re in Time Machine. And I can’t go to the folder this way and then restore via one of the buttons in the window bar, because it’s stored on an external hard drive and not my Mac.

 

[ricede]

Sorry didn't read your post right.

I imagine that you can still backup to the same TM backup ? If you can -try this :

Open a Finder window & then go to the 'GO' in the menubar and open user/library in your Finder.

Drag that Library into the left hand column under favourites.

Then do a backup of your present A/c.

When thats completed - enter TM and see if that Library is present in all your past backups as well.

I have no way of testing this but it might work.

I have always kept the Library in my Finder favourites column, so it has always been there in TM.

 

[Silly John Fatty]

Sorry didn't read your post right.

I imagine that you can still backup to the same TM backup ? If you can -try this :

Open a Finder window & then go to the 'GO' in the menubar and open user/library in your Finder.

Drag that Library into the left hand column under favourites.

Then do a backup of your present A/c.

When thats completed - enter TM and see if that Library is present in all your past backups as well.

I have no way of testing this but it might work.

I have always kept the Library in my Finder favourites column, so it has always been there in TM.

No problem!

I don’t dare to make a backup right now, so scared of overriding something! But what I’m wondering is: why can’t I load a backup from a finder window? Isn’t there usually a button? I mean, a backup is already there and I set my Time Machine to use this drive as a backup (although I deactivated automatic backing up). So is this because I haven’t done a backup yet on this fresh install? It would be pretty dumb and useless…

Because this way I COULD actually go to the user library, then press this button to back it up, and then load my backed up chats!

 

[ricede]

I don’t dare to make a backup right now, so scared of overriding something!

Sorry i dont get that. If you do a backup now , its only going to backup whats on your mac now. Providing you have enough room on the Ext Hd there shouldnt be a problem, you wont override old backups. If you need to, you can always go into TM afterwards & delete the new backup ( even though i cant think of any reason why you should need to ).

As for your other questions - im afraid i didn't understand. You ask what I’m wondering is: why can’t I load a backup from a finder window? Isn’t there usually a button?

There isn't any button in the finder to load a a backup. the only way is through TM and in that you cant get to the User/Library.

 

[ricede]

I seem to have made this far too complicated.

If you show hidden files on your mac ( either through a terminal command or any other method ) you can then go to the backups.backupdb folder & the User/library folder will show up in all your backups there. You can then just drag the Messages folder into your Library on the mac from whichever backup you prefer.

It is worth dragging the Library folder into the Favorites column, so you dont have this problem in the future.

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There is a menubar app called DeskTopUtility https://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/38299/desktoputility

which can be used to show hidden files, if you dont want to use Terminal. Theres also a widget available called 'hiddenfiles' but you will have to search for that.

 

[Silly John Fatty]

Yes there used to be a button, the “Action” button which opens a drop-down menu and you had the option to load a backup!

As for dragging it from the backup folder itself: I’ve heard it can make problems, and that it should be avoided. Is that right? I remember dragging some files once and then also trying to trash them and it took me ages to empty the trash, well it made a hell lot of problems.

Maybe I’ll try doing a new backup!

 

[ricede]

As for dragging it from the backup folder itself: I’ve heard it can make problems, and that it should be avoided.

I have NEVER had any problem dragging a folder from the backups folder into the finder.

I am suggesting just dragging the Messages folder, not the entire backup. Therefore there shouldnt be anything that needs trashing !

 

[Silly John Fatty]

I wanted to try it now but again, the Library folder wasn’t visible (I forgot that!) so I couldn’t get it. Decided to use the “show hidden files” script, and finally restored from Time Machine.

But my old chats don’t appear in Messages, I don’t understand it

I’ve restored following files:

Archive (folder)
Attachements (folder)
chat.db
chat.db-shm
chat-db-wal

What am I doing wrong? Anything else I should restore?

 

[ricede]

Under the messages tab in Messages/Preferences - there is a check box " Save history when conversation is closed "

I have had this box checked since 10.8, BUT, I have never found any saved chats in the folder Messages in User/Library. I think this might be bug.

If anyone has any other suggestion i would like to hear it.

So Sanchez25 - it doesn't surprise me that you haven't found them.

 

[Silly John Fatty]

Under the messages tab in Messages/Preferences - there is a check box " Save history when conversation is closed "

I have had this box checked since 10.8, BUT, I have never found any saved chats in the folder Messages in User/Library. I think this might be bug.

If anyone has any other suggestion i would like to hear it.

So Sanchez25 - it doesn't surprise me that you haven't found them.

I just looked and the box was already ticked by default! I tried sending a message to myself (from my iPhone to the Mac) and it worked. It appeared there and stayed after I closed and re-opened the program.

What I’m wondering however is how do I get old messages (from before I made my fresh install) to appear back in iMessages?

And the saved chats are in “Archive”
I’ve checked back there and I can see the new message I’ve just sent to myself, in a folder just like all others. Except the others won’t appear in the app.

I can double click them, and it will open them in Messages, but it will do this in a separate window and I can’t keep them there anywhere

 

[Silly John Fatty]

Update: new messages, however, from other people too, DO appear on the Messages app.

But still searching how to make old ones appear… wondering if this is possible at all? I sure hope it is

 

[Silly John Fatty]

RESOLVED: They appeared again when I loaded my iTunes library backup…

 

[Silly John Fatty]

Sorry i dont get that. If you do a backup now , its only going to backup whats on your mac now. Providing you have enough room on the Ext Hd there shouldnt be a problem, you wont override old backups.

This was a pretty dumb idea, because that’s exactly what happened now Tried making a backup of my Mac and it deleted all of my old backups because there was not enough space. Of course it only told me this after it had already deleted everything…

But thankfully the latest one remained intact, otherwise I’d be sitting and crying now as I haven’t yet copied all of my stuff to the fresh installed OS

 

[ricede]

I did say " Providing you have enough room on the Ext Hd there shouldnt be a problem, you wont override old backups."

I obviously wasn't clear enough