Simply mount your time machine backups volume then navigate to /Backups.backupdb//Latest. Under there is your latest backup. You can then copy and paste the files manually wherever you want them.

Answer from Bill Brasky on Stack Exchange
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Apple Support
support.apple.com › guide › mac-help › restore-files-mh11422 › mac
Restore items backed up with Time Machine on Mac - Apple Support
For example, if an item was in the Documents folder, it’s returned to the Documents folder. With many apps, you can use File > Revert To > Browse All Versions to view previous versions of documents in Time Machine, then find and restore the version you want.
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The Mac Observer
macobserver.com › tmo › article › time_machine_restoring_files_to_specific_locations
Time Machine: Restoring Files to Specific Locations – The Mac Observer
January 16, 2012 - The default behavior is that Time Machine’ll put whatever you’re restoring back where it came from—which may not be what you’re looking to do. With that method, you may even have to decide if you want to keep the original, the replacement, or both.
Discussions

Copy files from TIme Machine back up to a new location
In the Time Machine viewer, navigate to the file(s) you want to restore, then Control-click (or two-finger tap, or right click... whatever is your preference) then select "Restore to..." from the contextual menu. That will exit the TM interface and present you with the familiar "file save" dialog where you can select the restore location... More on discussions.apple.com
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Restoring selected files from time machine backup of a different mac - Ask Different
Here's the situation so far: 20" Alum iMac 2007 HDD has died (3 days after I got a new Macbook Pro - coincidence, or suicide?) It had a time machine backup on a regular external drive I have connec... More on apple.stackexchange.com
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February 3, 2014
How do I restore from Time Machine to an external drive in Ventura?
TM is a backup of Now system not an Archive of old files. Which will be wiped if TM runs of space. Just create a new TM If HDD/SSD is stuffed then it unlikely you will be able to recover any data More on reddit.com
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5
July 23, 2023
Can I recover/view settings and specific files from a time machine backup?
You can extract individual files and directories from Time Machine backups. More on reddit.com
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August 9, 2024
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Apple Community
discussions.apple.com › thread › 254543980
Copy files from TIme Machine back up to a new location
In the Time Machine viewer, navigate to the file(s) you want to restore, then Control-click (or two-finger tap, or right click... whatever is your preference) then select "Restore <item> to..." from the contextual menu. That will exit the TM interface and present you with the familiar "file ...
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The MacGuys+
themacguys.com › mac managed it services support minneapolis | the macguys+ › mac tips › restoring files with time machine | mac it support | the macguys+
Restoring Files with Time Machine | Mac IT Support | The MacGuys+ | The MacGuys+
March 18, 2020 - For each click, Time Machine jumps to the most recent backup in which the files shown in the window were different. Use the bars on the right side of the screen to navigate to a particular backup. As you hover over the bars, they expand to display the date of each backup; click a bar to jump to the state of the window at that point in time. Because we’re just practicing here, we’ll restore to the Desktop instead of the original location...
Find elsewhere
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Reddit
reddit.com › r/macos › how do i restore from time machine to an external drive in ventura?
r/MacOS on Reddit: How do I restore from Time Machine to an external drive in Ventura?
July 23, 2023 -

Background:

I set up my wife's computer with her user folder on an external drive and backed up the entire computer on time machine. Recently, the external drive had a crash so I bought a new external hard drive.

Now I'm trying to restore her user folder but I can't figure out how to restore to the external drive. Here's what I've tried:

  • Time machine app doesn't see the old files because I'm logged in to a different user account.

  • Migration assistant sees the old files but doesn't give me an option to restore to the external drive, just to the internal.

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Apple Support
support.apple.com › en-us › 102551
Restore your Mac from a backup - Apple Support
Use Migration Assistant to transfer files from your Time Machine backup to your Mac.
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Reddit
reddit.com › r/macos › can i recover/view settings and specific files from a time machine backup?
r/MacOS on Reddit: Can I recover/view settings and specific files from a time machine backup?
August 9, 2024 -

MBP16 (intel) Sonoma 14.5

I have a full time machine backup. I want to reset my computer and do a fresh install (format and install latests sonoma).

I also have a drive with simple backups of data folders I use and a few folders I believe have important info.

If I forget to manually backup something such as my .zshrc file or if I don't remember a specific setting (my accessibility zoom settings for example), would I be able to find and extract this info from time machine?

I have only used time machine to transfer from one machine to another. Never as a backup for specific things.

thank you

Top answer
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Update: I have modified the first paragraph and added a section at the end.

This answer was accepted whilst limited to restoring your data, as in the question title. It now also covers associating the restored disk with the existing backup so that future backups continue without duplicating disk space on the Time Machine (TM) disk.

Firstly, forget everything you have read about Backups.backup which only applies to backups where the TM disk is using the HFS+ format.

From Big Sur onwards the format for new backups is APFS. APFS formatted backup disks use snapshots for each backup. Each snapshot is an APFS volume - it is not a directory.

An aside: The man page for tmutil covers backups in both formats with no clear distinction between them. As a consequence, it can be very confusing except as a command reminder for those who already understand TM in some detail.

Before doing a restore, turn TM backup off. Just so that this doesn't confuse or impact performance while you are restoring.

Use Finder to navigate the TM disk. In Finder your Media TM disk will look something like my MyBook6B-TM:

Each backup is a snapshot with a “disk & clock” TM icon.

Choose the one you want to recover from and navigate it in the usual way with Finder. Then just drag and drop folders or files from there to another Finder window with your new disk.

Drilling down can be a little slow at times with a beachball - be patient.

At this point you should on your way to recovering files from your Media TM backup disk.

As a little more background, behind the scene, the snapshot has been mounted (like it was a disk). In the Finder window above I could hover over the /Volumes/.time... at the top to see the mount point where the snapshot has been mounted. It is this location that you can (if needed) use in Terminal by typing cd and dragging the disk-like icon to Terminal. This is what I have done below. I did not type the /Volumes....

gilby@Beth/Users/gilby% cd /Volumes/.timemachine/02EED3F7-B8DF-44BB-8EA6-28D7822B1A4B/2022-11-15-215052.backup/2022-11-15-215052.backup
gilby@Beth/Volumes/.timemachine/02EED3F7-B8DF-44BB-8EA6-28D7822B1A4B/2022-11-15-215052.backup/2022-11-15-215052.backup% ls -lah
total 136
drwxr-xr-x@  5 root  wheel   160B 15 Nov 21:43 .
drwxrwxr-x@  5 root  wheel   160B 15 Nov 21:50 ..
-rw-------   1 root  wheel   806B 15 Nov 21:50 .com.apple.timemachine.checkpoint
-rw-r--r--   1 root  wheel    62K 15 Nov 21:43 .exclusions.plist
drwxr-xr-x@ 20 root  wheel   640B 15 Nov 21:50 BethSSD - Data
gilby@Beth/Volumes/.timemachine/02EED3F7-B8DF-44BB-8EA6-28D7822B1A4B/2022-11-15-215052.backup/2022-11-15-215052.backup%

This only works correctly because the snapshot has been mounted due to Finder asking to see what is inside the snapshot. It can be mounted in other ways, but via Finder is easy.

A final point coming back to what you have already discovered. The /Volumes/.timemachine folder contains the mount points at which backup snapshots can be mounted. But navigating with cd and ls is not sufficient to mount the snapshot.

Associating the new disk with the existing TM backup:

I was hesitant to describe how to associate the new disk with the TM backup so that future backups would just add to the existing backup without duplicating everything. But thanks to @Christoph being prepared to take risk, we have established how to associate the disk. This addendum is taken from the discussion in comments.

The man page for tmutil does give the commands for associating the disk, but the example is only correct for HFS+ format TM disk. There is no example for APFS.

In this case the destination TM disk is formatted APFS and correct command (specific to the configuration in the question) is:

sudo tmutil associatedisk "/Volumes/All Data" "/Volumes/Media TM/2023-01-13-202029.previous/All Data"

For others wanting to do this replace the All Data with the name of the recovered data disk.

The second parameter is not so easy, but see the last two commands in the question which show the results of ls -la "/Volumes/<TM disk>" and ls -la "/Volumes/<TM disk>/<date-time>.previous".

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I was also trying to recover a backup from my external drive.

The goal was to transfer backup data to a fresh external drive. The old drive was not working anymore.

  1. Go to Browse Time Machine Backups
  2. Go back in time when the external drive was still working.
  3. In the left side menu, select Locations your Machine, and look for your computer´s name.
  4. When select your computer you should also see the external drives inside the Time Machine backup!
  5. Right-click and restore to your new drive.

More detailed instructions are available at Time Machine in Sonoma: Back up and restore external volumes.

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MacSales.com
eshop.macsales.com › home › how to restore data from time machine backups
How to Restore Data From Time Machine Backups
July 9, 2021 - This is a boon to anyone who needs ... The best way to restore a single file is to open a Finder window and browse to the location where the document is or was kept on your Mac....
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EaseUS
easeus.com › mac file recovery › how to restore individual files from time machine to new mac
Restore Individual Files from Time Machine to New Mac - EaseUS
2 weeks ago - Click on the "Enter Time Machine" button. All of your previous Time Machine backups will be shown on this screen. Look for a file or folder in its original location to restore it.
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The Mac Observer
macobserver.com › home › how to restore files to an external drive with time machine
How to Restore Files to an External Drive with Time Machine - The Mac Observer
July 5, 2018 - Here's how to restore a file or folder from Time Machine when you want to put the recovered item on an external drive.
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Apple Community
discussions.apple.com › thread › 255820026
Time Machine "Restore to..." doesn't work - Apple Community
Restored items return to their original location. For example, if an item was in the Documents folder, it’s returned to the Documents folder. ... It is pity, that "Restore to ..." is no longer working as before. It will not help to upgrade to Sequoia, there is still the same problem and we cannot restore directly to a different folder.
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MakeUseOf
makeuseof.com › home › apple › 3 ways to restore data from time machine backups
3 Ways to Restore Data From Time Machine Backups
December 3, 2019 - Use the Time Machine app to restore particular files. Revert your entire Mac to a previous backup with macOS Recovery. Migrate files or user accounts to a different Mac using Migration Assistant.
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Apple
support.apple.com › en-ca › guide › mac-help › mh11422 › mac
Restore items backed up with Time Machine on Mac - Apple Support (CA)
Restored items return to their original location. For example, if an item was in the Documents folder, it’s returned to the Documents folder. With many apps, you can use File > Revert To > Browse All Versions to view previous versions of documents in Time Machine, then find and restore the ...
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9to5Mac
9to5mac.com › 2019 › 02 › 05 › restore-specific-files-folders-time-machine-mac
How to restore specific files/folders with Time Machine on Mac - 9to5Mac
February 6, 2019 - What some users may not know is you can use Time Machine to restore specific files to your Mac. Follow along to learn how to restore specific files/folders with Time Machine on your Mac… · Open Finder and visit the folder you’re looking for. In your Mac’s menubar locate the Time Machine icon and tap Enter Time Machine.