Test your backup before you need it

It’s a good idea to practice restoring your files. Restoring your files before you need to is a great way to make sure the data in the backup matches the data on your hard disk. Also, it’s much easier to get familiar with the process of restoring files when you’re not under pressure.

Restore backups to a new location

If you would like to restore your backup to a location other than its original location, select “Restore to an alternate location” before you click Restore Selection. Restoring to an alternate location is a good way to test a backup. It’s also useful when you’re restoring data from applications like Mail, iPhoto, and Address Book, which keep all their data in one place, and you want to make sure you don’t lose any data you added since the backup was made.

Restore an older version of a file

By default, Backup 3 backs up only files that have changed since your last backup. In addition to using less time and storage space to back up your data, this feature also lets you restore a specific version of a file. Choose the backup plan you want to restore, click the Restore button, and then choose a backup from the Previous Backups column. Each item in this column contains a different version of your data. The most recent versions are at the top, and older versions are at the bottom.

Restore files from CD or DVD without a master disc

If you back up your data to CD or DVD but have lost one of the discs, you can still restore most of the files if you’re using the Mac that created the backup. When Backup asks you for a disc, insert the requested disk and click Restore Selection. If you don’t have the requested disc, click Skip. You can still restore files contained on the discs you have.

Restore backups from earlier versions of Backup

If you’ve been using Backup 2 to keep your files safe, Backup 3 can restore files from your older backups. To restore from a backup created by an older version of Backup, choose Restore from Backup from the Plan menu, choose the location of the backup file, and then select the “Backup to be restored was created with Backup version 1 or 2” option.