Browse other time machine disks

A

aicul

Registered
Hello,

Has anyone noticed this and tested what it does. I do not have the necessary setup (2 time machine backups) to try it out.

1. In preferences/time machine set the "show time machine status in the menu bar"

2. Then click the time machine icon in the menu bar and keeping the mouse button pressed, press the "alt" key.

3. The 3rd menu option changes from "Enter time machine" to "browse other time machine disks"

My guess is that if you have more than one time machine backup, you can supposedly restore one of the files from another Mac onto your mac.

Can someone try this out and provide feed-back?

cheers
 
I think your guess is just a guess.
AFAIK, you can't grab a file from another Time Machine backup, unless it was created from the same OS X installation, that is, a second hard drive used for Time Machine backups on that same Mac.
 
It is a guess, but normally apple menu options are quite explicit.

I'll see if I can set something up... ugh will have to do full backup of a mac before I can test... that will take a day... but maybe worth it.
 
Yes, did you miss something?
Are you really going to test this out?

Browse Other Time Machine Disks means (to me) choose another Time Machine disk (for this computer), not some other disk used for a Time Machine backup on another computer. Otherwise, the menu would read "Browse other backups" (or something similar). Seems clear enough, if you don't 'read between the lines'
Time Machine would check to see if there is a backup for your computer on that other disk, and would ignore backups produced by Time Machine on other Macs. Do you need to attempt to retrieve info from another Mac's backup?
 
So here is the result of my test which involves putting my timemachine disk on wifi. This disk contains backup of mac A and then using the timemachine+alt "browse other time machine disks" on mac B. Both A and B are in 10.5.2. Timemachine of mac B is stopped.

Using mac B I get:

1. list of available backups is listed including the backup of mac A. I select this backup.

2. the timemachine back-to-the future screen appears on mac B. Finder screen visible with "Macintosh HD".

3. double click of the HD reveals that it belongs to A

4. navigation from B of backup files of A is possible except for the user accounts of A

5. restore of a file from A backup will "freeze" B mac (needs restart).

Conclusion based on this test: functionality is limited and not fully operational BUT it does, in principal, allow to look at the backup of another mac.
 
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