Shut down your PC and then connect the Time Machine external to the PC via USB. If instead you’re using a Thunderbolt external, check the enclosure to see if it has a USB port many Thunderbolt enclosures support both USB and Thunderbolt. We’re going to start this process with an assumption: your Time Machine backup was on an external drive that was connected to your Mac via one of the many flavors of USB. It’s just that since there’s no version of Time Machine that runs on Windows, you have to be a bit creative to gain access to your backups.Īccessing Time Machine Backups From a Windows PC And no, I don’t mean using a PC is the worst thing. We’re going to take a look at the worst-case scenario, which is to have a Windows PC be the only option. If your temporary computer is a Windows PC, the process is a bit more involved. (You can access any Time Machine drive using the “Browse Other Backup Disks…” option, available from the Time Machine menu bar item.) Just plug your Time Machine drive into the available Mac, option-click the Time Machine menu bar item, and select Browse Other Backup Disks. If you have access to a Mac, the process is fairly simple. There are a couple of ways to gain access to your Time Machine backup files, depending on the computer you’ll be using in the interim.

In the meantime, how do you access the files you need right away?

In the same vein, getting your Mac fixed could also turn out to be a long wait. It’s the heart of my personal backup system, and knowing I could recover my files quickly if my Mac’s drive ever failed keeps me feeling safe.īut what if it wasn’t just the drive that failed, but your Mac that gave up the ghost? Unless you’re willing to run down to a local Mac reseller and pick up whatever Mac is on the shelf, it would likely take you some time to select a new Mac and have it shipped to you (or to your local store). For quite some time now, Time Machine has been the go-to backup app for most Mac users.

Mac recover from time machine