How to recover notes from an old Mac’s backup

By Caner Kaya, Kayabyte · Last updated 17 October 2026

You’ve moved to a new Mac, and some notes from the old one didn’t come across: often notes stored “On My Mac”, which were never in iCloud. Or the old Mac is broken, sold or wiped, and all you have left is its Time Machine disk. As long as that backup exists, the notes are in it.

This guide shows where the notes are inside an old backup and three ways to get them out.

Before you start

• Find the Time Machine disk the old Mac used, or a copy of its user folder.
• Don’t use that disk as the backup disk for your new Mac yet. Time Machine on the new Mac can delete old backups to make room.
• If the disk is encrypted, you’ll need its password.

Where the notes are in the backup

1. Connect the disk to your new Mac. It appears in Finder’s sidebar.
2. Open it. What you see depends on the format:
   • Newer backups (APFS, macOS 11 and later): folders named by date and time, such as 2026-05-14-093012.backup. Each is a complete backup.
   • Older backups (Mac OS Extended): a folder called Backups.backupdb, then a folder with the old Mac’s name, then folders named by date.
3. Open a date from before the notes were lost, then Macintosh HD - Data (or Macintosh HD), Users, the old user name, Library, Group Containers, group.com.apple.notes.

Library is hidden: press Command-Shift-period in Finder to show hidden folders.

That folder holds the old Mac’s whole Notes database (NoteStore.sqlite) plus attachments. Very old Macs (before about macOS 10.11) may keep notes in Library/Containers/com.apple.Notes instead.

Now copy the group.com.apple.notes folder to your Desktop, holding Option while you drag. Copying is safe; it doesn’t change the backup.

Option 1: Migration Assistant into a separate user

Migration Assistant can bring the old Mac’s user account across from the Time Machine backup as a new, separate user on your Mac.

1. Open Migration Assistant (Applications, Utilities).
2. Choose to transfer from a Mac, Time Machine backup or startup disk, and pick the backup.
3. Select only the old user account. If a user with the same name already exists, choose to rename the old one rather than replace your current user.
4. Log in as that user, turn off Wi-Fi first, and open Notes. Copy out the notes you need (File, Export as PDF, or copy the text), and put the files somewhere both users can reach, such as the Shared folder in Users.

This is reliable, but it copies the whole old account, which can take hours and a lot of disk space. Delete the extra user when you’re done.

Option 2: Swap the Notes folder for a moment

You can put the old Notes folder in place of your current one, open Notes offline, copy out what you need, and swap back. It’s quicker but riskier, because your current notes are out of place while you do it. The full steps, with a safety copy, are in How to restore a note from Time Machine; use the folder you copied from the old backup in step 4 there.

Option 3: Read the backup with an app

NoteRescue, the Mac app we make, reads old Time Machine disks directly, including backups of other Macs and older Mac OS Extended disks. It lists every note in every backup, shows which ones aren’t in your Notes today, and exports them or adds them to Notes in a new folder. You can also point it at a copied group.com.apple.notes folder. It never changes the backup, and the scan is free.

iPhone backups on the old Mac

If you used to back up an iPhone to the old Mac, those backups may be on the Time Machine disk too, in the old user’s Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup. They hold the notes that were on the phone at the time. Copy the backup folder to your new Mac and see How to get notes back from an iPhone backup on a Mac.

Common questions

Will my iCloud notes be in the old backup? Yes, if the old Mac used iCloud for Notes, the backup has a copy of the iCloud notes it had downloaded. But they’re also still in iCloud unless deleted, so check icloud.com/notes first.

The disk won’t open on my new Mac. Newer versions of macOS no longer create Mac OS Extended Time Machine disks. If macOS no longer offers to unlock the disk, open it on an older Mac that still can, and copy the folders you need from there.

Can I just copy the old Notes folder into my new Mac’s Library? Not while you have notes on the new Mac you want to keep: the old folder would replace them. Use one of the options above.