How to Restore Mac to Yesterday - TechnologyDOTs.com

Restoring your Mac to an earlier version is only possible if you’ve been making consistent backups. You can use the Time Machine feature on macOS to make a backup of your files and folders, including photos, music, notes, and emails, to an external drive and then reinstall that version if the need arises.

Restoring your Mac to an earlier version can become necessary if you’ve made extensive changes to your Mac that had drastic effects on its performance and want to revert the OS back to how it was before those changes were made. Or, maybe your Mac has been infected by some virus or malware.

The reason could be anything for using the Time Machine. You need to be careful with it if you have lost data. Simply follow the steps mentioned and your data will be safe. Let us look at all you need to know on how to restore Mac to yesterday.

Table of Contents

How to Create a Backup On Mac Using Time Machine?

Before we begin restoring, we must first understand how to create a backup file using Time Machine. Read the following instructions to see how to do it.

Sign in to your Mac and connect an external USB or thunderbolt drive that is compatible with Time Machine.
Move the cursor over to the menu bar and choose System Preferences after clicking on the Apple logo.
Head over to the Time machine tab and click on Select backup disk.

Now, choose the drive that you just connected.
Enter a name for the disk and then click on Use disk.

Restore Mac to Yesterday — how to restore mac to previous backup

Time Machine will now begin automatically making periodic backups to this external drive that you can access later on.

The first backup will take some time, and the backups succeeding the first one will be much quicker as Time Machine will only backup the files that have been modified or edited since the last backup.

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How to Restore Mac to Yesterday?

Now we can look at steps to restore Mac to yesterday or an earlier version using Time Machine. Read the instructions given below to see how to do it.

Power on your Mac and make sure the Time Machine drive is connected to it.
Shut down your Mac after checking it.
If you have a Mac using Intel’s Processor, click the power button while pressing the Command- R button on the keyboard.
Release the Command-R button when a spinning globe or the Apple logo is displayed on the screen.
Now, provide your login ID and password to verify.
From macOS, utilities select the Restore from time machine backup option.

Follow the instructions displayed on-screen and select the date and time to which you want to restore your Mac.

For users with the Apple Silicon M1 chips, make sure your laptop is shut down. Thumb down the power button and release it when startup options are displayed on the screen.

Select Options and type in your login ID and password for verification.
Click on Restore from time machine backup and choose the date and time you want to restore from.
Follow the instructions displayed on the screen, and you should be good.

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How to Skip a Time Machine Backup?

You can skip an ongoing backup on Time Machine using the steps detailed below.

Sign in to your Mac and click the Time Machine icon on the menu bar.
If there’s an ongoing backup, you will see a greyed-out section showing how much has been backed up.
Click on Skip this backup from the list, and the backup will be canceled.

Subsequently, you can also start a backup manually. Click on the Time Machine icon on the menu bar, and if there isn’t an ongoing backup, it will show the date and time when the last backup was initiated. Click Back up now to start a backup manually.

How to Exclude Items From Time Machine Backup?

Read the instructions provided below to see how to exclude files from being backed up by Time Machine.

Sign in to your Mac.
Choose System Preferences after clicking on the Apple logo on the menu bar.
Head over to the Time Machine tab.
Click on Options at the bottom of the window and select the “+” icon to add items to the exclusion list.
Select the files and documents that you do not want to be backed up and click on Exclude.

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How to Stop Excluding Items From Time Machine Backup?

Read the instructions provided below to see how to stop excluding files from being backed up by Time Machine.

Sign in to your Mac.
Choose System Preferences after clicking on the Apple logo on the menu bar.
Head over to the Time Machine tab.
Click on Options at the bottom of the window, select the item that you would like to stop excluding, and click on the “-” icon to remove it from the exclusion list.

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Are There Any Other Ways to Backup Files on Mac?

Yes, in addition to Time Machine, you can also utilize third-party backup software to do the same. We recommend Disk Drill and SuperDuper to backup and restore files on your Mac. Both of them offer much better backup speeds than Time Machine; however, some of their features might be locked behind a paywall.

Other than that, you can also use iCloud or other cloud-based storage platforms to backup your data. iCloud will automatically back up your photos, videos, notes, emails, and other things you can access through any other Apple device.

Conclusion

Here is all you need to know in order to restore Mac to yesterday or the previous version you last used. The process as you learned above is pretty straightforward only if you’ve been diligent in making constant backups earlier.

You can use various tools to backup and restore files on your Mac apart from Time Machine, which offers much better speeds but may have in-app purchases or other features you need to pay to access. Moreover, you can follow steps in order to exclude anything you do not wish to get back on your system from the previous version.

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Robert

Robert is a tech expert (with more than 10 years of experience in using mac os and iPhone) who loves to help others learn about the Mac operating system and iPhone. He provides helpful tutorials on how to use Mac OS, tips and tricks for getting the most out of your Mac operating system, iPhone tips and tricks, and more. He’s always up for a challenge and enjoys learning new things about his favorite OS. When he’s not helping people get the most out of their technology, he enjoys spending time with his wife and two cats. Check out more.