I am wanting to re-format and start anew with my time machine backup, but I am unsure if restoring a folder restores all copies of files across backups, or only copies found in the most recent backup. Ex: If I have files AB in backup 1, files ABC in backup 2, and files BC in the most recent backup, when I use the "restore to…" function and restore a backup folder to my user folder, does it restore ABC? I've browsed Pondini's webpage and several posts here and elsewhere, and haven't seen this specifically addressed. I'm not so much worried about different versions of a given file, but am seeking a "flattened" restoration of files that have been since deleted along with more recent files, all of which should be present in various backups but that are not all present in any one given backup.
Thanks!
Best Answer
Doing a full restore from Time Machine will restore exactly one snapshot (usually the most recent one), without any files/folders only available in other/older versions. Which actually kind of makes sense if you consider that TM also backups OS files etc where you don't what to have a flattening effect with files from previous versions.
You can recover files only available in older snapshots through the Time Machine interface from Finder though.