How can I access Time Machine backup data for other computers?

Though my tale is a bit less dramatic (fortunately!) I too recently found myself needing to dig around on a Time Machine backup. Here's how I solved it...

For clarity, "Time Machine" is the backup software system that's included with Mac OS X and a "Time Capsule" is a physical device that serves as a backup storage system, along with an 802.11g wireless station and simple Ethernet hub. It's quite a versatile box, actually, and I'm a big fan.

I first tried just launching "Time Machine" on one of the other Macs on our network, but while that offered a neato view of versions of my existing computer, there was no apparent way to get to other backups of other computers. Not useful.

Instead, a quick search of VersionTracker.com produced one splendid sounding match:

"Back-In-Time... Transcend Time Machine restoration possibilities. Back-In-Time offers an easy access to all the data backed up by Time Machine. Features that you can do with Back-In-Time only: Show how many versions of each document are available, and when they were saved. Show items that were deleted. Drag and Drop to copy items anywhere. Open multiple browsers at the same time. Handle multiple Time Machine disks. Access Time Machine data from other Macs. Preview different versions of each document. And much more..."

Yeah, I do, so I click on "OK" and proceed:

Hold on a second, pardner! Are you sure you want to open a disk image that has an app downloaded from the Internet?

Yes, Mr. Big Brother, I do. (actually, it's very useful to get these reminders before you do something dumb and install some malicious software on your computer without thinking about it)

Now, just to make this scary, you need to actually tell this new application you just downloaded your Mac OS X administrator password:

Since it's going to be working with Time Machine disk images, it does legitimately need access to root so it can manipulate files and get to the file system. Go for it, I'm 99% sure it's safe. :-)

Now you finally start the actual application, which immediately prompts you for your registration serial number:

If you have one, enter it here, but if you don't just wait a few seconds and you can click on "Demo" and proceed with a fully functional application anyway.

When I finally got the app running, I promptly hit this error:

Aww jeez, that's frustrating! Since I am working with a Time Capsule (e.g., remote network backup device for Time Machine on my Mac OS X system) I need to do what it indicates, namely mount the remote volume and actually open the disk image.

The fastest way to get to the right spot in this situation is to click on the Finder (or Desktop) then type Shift-Cmd-K, which shows you all the network drives visible to the computer. One should be your remote drive. Connect to it by double-clicking:

When I double-click on the actual icon for the Time Capsule (in this case, the "Dave's Time Capsule" icon in the above screen shot) I see information for each of the two computers I back up to the device:

The file I'm seeking is on the system identified as "Lighter than Air" (any guesses what kind of laptop it is? :-) so I double-click on that to open it, and see this:

The first time I did this, I waited. And waited. And waited for the "check" to finish up. Literally 90 minutes later I clicked on "Skip" and *poof* I was ready to proceed. Further tests show that you can also click on the "Skip" button faster than 90 minutes into the process, in fact immediately works pretty well too!

My theory is that because of how the Time Capsule stores its data, it's a very, very long process to verify the data remotely. Whatever the reason, once you're past - or skip - the verification step, it mounts the remote drive:

Now Back-In-Time suddenly looks like a darn useful app as it automatically detects the newly mounted Time Machine archive and shows a summary of what's there:

The file I seek is in "Documents", so that's what I open up by simply double-clicking on that entry on the screen and see a helpful listing of what's there:

It's the 2007 tax worksheet that I was seeking and it's conveniently right on top. Good. To grab a copy of it is simplicity itself: I just drag and drop the file entry onto my Desktop and... I have recovered the file from the Time Machine backup!

Very nice job, Thierry Rolland (the programmer who wrote Back-In-Time). If you ask me, Apple should just buy your application and include it with the Time Capsule subsystem. It's that useful. No question, if you're going to use this at all, though, do also register your copy. It's $29 well spent the first time you use it!