You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!

When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

Restoring specific photos using Time Machine

Is there a way to restore specific photos rather than an entire Photos library using Time Machine? Sometime in the past 6 months I was deleting photos and it seems I deleted a hundred or so photos from January 2012 when I only intended to delete a few. I know the names of the missing photos but can't seem to get into my backed-up Photos library to select just a few photos to restore. I would rather not restore the entire library because I spent a lot of time deleting photos from my library and don't want to have to redo that. Thanks for any advice.

iMac 21.5″, macOS 10.14

Posted on Dec 21, 2020 2:41 PM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Dec 21, 2020 2:47 PM

No, it's the entire library or nothing. You can restore the library to another volume and use the paid versions of PowerPhotos to copy the photos you need and either edits and metadata to your current working library.


Or, open the restore library, export the original photos you need to a folder and then import them into your working library. You will lose all edits and metadata.


5 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Dec 21, 2020 2:47 PM in response to jrember

No, it's the entire library or nothing. You can restore the library to another volume and use the paid versions of PowerPhotos to copy the photos you need and either edits and metadata to your current working library.


Or, open the restore library, export the original photos you need to a folder and then import them into your working library. You will lose all edits and metadata.


Restoring specific photos using Time Machine

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.