Recovering files from an old Time Machine backup

Walletarian wrote:

1. Using M3Pro with Sequoia 15.2, Have an external drive from previous Mac with Time Machine backups.

Can I VIEW and search the old Time Machine files with my new machine with our doing a restore?

2. Can that old TM file be restored to iCloud Drive?

For number 1, yes, you can use the Finder to search this drive. I will explain in a bit. For number 2, no, Time Machine (TM) cannot restore to the iCloud Drive.

Here are the basic steps to try accessing the old TM backup:

1. Plug in your external drive containing the TM backup to your new Mac.
2. Launch Finder and check if the drive appears in the Locations section of the sidebar. If it doesn’t show, go to Finder > Settings > Sidebar and make sure External Disks is checked.
3. Open the folder named Backups.backupdb.
4. Select the folder for your old Mac’s name (e.g., "John's MacBook Pro").
5. Navigate through the folder structure by date and time-stamped folders.
6. Simply drag and drop any file or folder from the backup to your new Mac if you need to restore specific data without performing a full restore.

Hold down the Option Key and select "Browse Other Backup Disks…" from the Time Machine menu.

You can restore files from the old backup jus like you can from your working backup.

It depends how old the backup is. In the good old days you could browse and copy files in a TM backup, although it was not recommended because of the risk of messing up future backups or recoveries. More recently, though, the only safe way to access it it through Time Machine using the recovery feature.