System Restore Mac: Restore Mac to a Previous Date in 3 Ways

Cassie

Last updated: Sep 12, 2023

Summary: This post provides 3 ways with step-by-step guides to help you conduct a Mac system restore.

If your Mac computer has problems, you may want to restore your Mac to a previously healthy state. How to do a system restore on Mac? This post provides 3 ways with detailed guides.

Also Read: How to Downgrade macOS Sonoma to Ventura: Step-by-step Guide

Conduct System Restore on Mac with Time Machine

If you’ve made some Time Machine backups for your Mac, you can easily restore your Mac to a previous date from Time Machine backups. Follow the guide below.

Connect the external Time Machine backup drive to your Mac.
Click Apple > System Settings > General > Time Machine.
Click the Select Backup Disk button and select the Time Machine backup drive.
Browse the Time Machine backups and choose a specific date when you want to restore your Mac system.
Click the Restore button to restore your Mac to a previous state.

note

Be cautious when you do a system restore for your Mac, as it will replace your current system and all data from the selected backup date. You should back up needed data on your Mac beforehand before you do this.

Restore Mac to a Previous Date from Recovery Mode

If your Mac won’t boot, you may try to start your Mac in Recovery Mode and restore your Mac system. Check the steps below.

Connect the Time Machine backup drive to your MacBook.
Turn on your MacBook and immediately press Command + R to boot your Mac into Recovery Mode. For Apple silicon Macs, press and hold the Power button until you see the Startup Options screen, select the Mac startup disk, and click Options > Continue to access the Recovery Mode.
Choose the “Restore from Time Machine” option and click Continue.
Follow the instructions to choose a Time Machine backup to revert your Mac to an earlier date.

Reinstall macOS to Restore Your Mac System

If you haven’t made some Time Machine backups for your Mac, then you may reinstall your macOS to restore your Mac system.

Follow the operation above to boot your Mac into Recovery Mode.
Choose Reinstall macOS (Sonoma, Ventura, or an earlier version) to follow the instructions to reinstall your Mac operating system.

tip

If you want to wipe your Mac and reinstall the OS, you need to first choose Disk Utility in Recovery Mode. Select your Mac boot drive and click the Erase option in Disk Utility to format your Mac startup disk to APFS. This way will erase all data on your Mac, so remember to back up all data on your Mac first.

Optimize Your Mac with BuhoCleaner

To keep your Mac at good performance, you can use a professional Mac cleaner program like BuhoCleaner to regularly clean your Mac.

BuhoCleaner helps you clean your Mac computer and free up much storage space for your Mac. It lets you flash clean your Mac to remove any junk data. You can use it to completely uninstall apps on your Mac with one click. It also lets you find and delete large files or duplicate files, disable startup items on Mac, free up Mac RAM, analyze disk space usage, flush DNS on Mac, and more.

Download and install BuhoCleaner on your Mac and use it to boost your Mac’s performance.

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Bottom Line

This post mainly introduces how to do a system restore on Mac to roll back your Mac to a previous date. 3 ways are included. A Mac cleaner program is also introduced to help you easily optimize your Mac performance.

Cassie

Cassie has been writing about technology for her entire career life - over 10 years. She enjoys diving into how Apple products work and then breaking it down in a way that anyone can understand.