Yesterday, I had problems restarting my Mac mini, so I booted off an external hard disk with a clone, and fixed the startup problem. This morning, I needed to find a file in my Time Machine backup, but all my backups prior to the moment I booted from the external disk were dark in the Time Machine timeline (at the right of the screen). In the Finder, I could only access those created since last night.
The backups were still there, though, and the Time Machine System Preferences pane recognized the date of my first backup as the oldest backup on my Time Machine disk.
I searched for solutions, and found none. Then I recalled an older hint about browsing other Time Machine backups by holding down the Option key while clicking the Time Machine icon in the menubar. So I tried that.
Only the one Time Machine disk showed up, and I selected it, and was able to access all my backups in the Time Machine interface. I left Time Machine and went back to the Finder. When I entered Time Machine from there, all my backups were now accessible, with the exception of the three oldest. I don't know why they all didn't come back, but at least I got most of them back. So if your Time Machine backups have entered a missing-but-there state, try the Option key solution to get them back.
The backups were still there, though, and the Time Machine System Preferences pane recognized the date of my first backup as the oldest backup on my Time Machine disk.
I searched for solutions, and found none. Then I recalled an older hint about browsing other Time Machine backups by holding down the Option key while clicking the Time Machine icon in the menubar. So I tried that.
Only the one Time Machine disk showed up, and I selected it, and was able to access all my backups in the Time Machine interface. I left Time Machine and went back to the Finder. When I entered Time Machine from there, all my backups were now accessible, with the exception of the three oldest. I don't know why they all didn't come back, but at least I got most of them back. So if your Time Machine backups have entered a missing-but-there state, try the Option key solution to get them back.
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