Restoring files from a backup copy

There are several ways to restore your files from a backup.

Just drag one or several files/folders from the backup using the finder

  1. Select the items in the backup folder you want to restore.
  2. Drag then to the appropriate folder on you Hard drive
  3. They will be copied, replacing the originals if they still exist

To replace your Home folder, the Users folder, or other users folders:

  1. Again, you can easily drag the items inside the backup copy of your home folder into your Home folder on your Hard drive. You can not drag the backup Home folder itself, just the contents of it.
  2. Alternately, you can use backuplist to copy the whole backup Home folder back to the source replacing the original one. You will need to use ditto or rsync copy methods. More on this..
    1. Just add the backup Home folder to the backuplist list window and calculate the size.
    2. Select your own Users folder as the destination (not the Home folder)
    3. open settings panel and un-check "backup to folder" check box.
    4. Press "Backup"
  3. You can copy the Users folder, or other users home folders this way too. Again you will need to use ditto or rsync copy method.

To restore the whole system after a crash or other situation:

  1. If you have a bootable copy of your system, you can restore that to your Hard drive.
    1. You must erase and reformat your Hard drive (Mac extended (journaled)). And repair permissions (use disk utility for all this.)
    2. Add the boot disk, or partition, to the backuplist list window.
    3. Select your Hard drive as the destination (Press "choose" in the destination popup.)
    4. Press "backup"
    5. Backuplist should copy the backup clone to your Hard drive restoring it to it's previous state.
  2. If you don't have a bootable copy of your hard drive.
    1. Re-install your system using the install disks that came with your computer. You mat want to install any additional updates (if you have saved them to a backup! Always do that!).
    2. Go about setting up the new system and name the user Home folders with the same names as before (this will make the transition smoother).
    3. Once it is all set up and working OK, copy, or drag, the contents of the backup Home folder to your Hard drive Home folder as stated above. This will restore all your personal files to the new system, including all the system preferences stored in your Home folder Library.
    4. If you didn't backup your whole Home Folder, but backed up the sets of system and application preferences created by backuplist (the "A" and "S" buttons...), you can copy or drag those back to the original folders on the new system. They will be in the special "Users preferences" folder (the one with the asterisk) and inside that they will be in one of four special folders created by backuplist indicating their location on your Home folder. So, if you find the Mail folder in the "User Library" folder, you need to copy the Mail folder to the Library Folder in your User Home folder and so forth...


See also

Choose a backup destination
Choose a backup folder

Using Auto Select

Setting the copy method