How to Restore Your Mac to a Previous Date

Macs are powerful computers with smooth performance and a strong graphic interface. However, you might see things start to slow down or macOS behave erratically with time.

There’s nothing wrong with your Mac. It is just some system changes or programs you have installed on your computer that are creating problems. So, the best solution is to roll back to the point when your Mac was working perfectly fine.

We also recommend our readers use CleanMyMac software to keep their Mac glitch-free in the long run. This tool will automatically solve some of the issues that Mac machines encounter with time.

Let’s first see how to restore your Mac to a previous date.

Is It Possible to Restore a Mac?

Yes, it is possible to restore your Mac at any point. The Mac comes with a built-in tool Time Machine that backs up your system settings. Also, you can use third-party tools to backup and restore modifications made at the given date and time.

So, if you properly maintain your Mac’s backup, restoring settings to the date when your Mac was working fine – is not a problem.

There are many situations when reversing Mac settings becomes essential, such as:

• You have accidentally deleted important files or folders.
• You have downloaded malware on your Mac.
• Some apps are not working on the new macOS, so you want to revert back to the older version.
• You want to undo some system changes, etc.

How to Restore Your Mac to the Given Date and Time

Before we move ahead and share steps to restore your Mac, remember you can only restore your computer if you frequently back it up. For this purpose, Time Machine is the best tool that backup hourly data for the past day, daily backups for the past month, and weekly backups for the past months.

A large hard drive is needed to store detailed backup via Time Machine. However, the tool will delete the previous backups when the hard drive is full.

So, if you have enabled Time Machine backup, restoring the Mac to previous data is super easy. Just walk through these steps:

Step 1. Create Time Capsule

Foremost, you have to configure a Time Capsule before doing anything else. The Time Capsule will restore the state when you have created a backup. You can both manually or automatically set up a Time Capsule.

First, connect an external hard drive to your Mac. You might receive a confirmation message saying, “Do you want to use the drive to back up with the Time Machine?” Choose to Use a Backup Disk to proceed.

You can also select Encrypt Backup Disk to add an extra security layer to your backup. If the hard drive connection doesn’t trigger automatically, you can:

Select Apple menu > Preferences > Time Machine > Backup Disk > Select the external disk > Add or Remove Backup Disk to ensure data security.

Step 2. Backup Data Using Time Machine

Once the Time Capsule is set up, it will automatically start backing up your past 24 hours and daily backups for the previous month. You can also select the Backup Now on the Time Machine to create an immediate backup.

This process might take some time, so be patient.

Step 3. Restore Your Mac

Finally, you can restore the system to any previous date you want. To do so, you have to launch OS X Recovery Tool:

• When you boot up or restart your system, press Command Key + R together to open OS X Recovery Tool.
• After that, select Restore from Time Machine Backup. If you have created multiple backups, select the one that you had created before your Mac started to behave erratically.
• Just restore the system and wait for a few minutes to complete the process.

Here you go! You have now successfully restored your Mac to a previous date.

If you don’t want to use Time Machine to back up the system, you need to get a third-party tool. That is because it is not possible to restore a Mac without significant backups.

We hope you find this article helpful. Do share your thoughts or any doubts with us in the comments.