Ao reinstalar o sistema operacional, o OS X perguntará se você deseja restaurar a partir de um backup do Time Machine. basta selecionar sua unidade de backup TM e ela instalará o SO atualizado e restaurará seus dados.
Contanto que você não tenha configurado nenhuma pasta excluída, ela copiará todos os seus dados em todos os lugares, exceto nas pastas do sistema.
Você pode encontrar a lista atual de exclusões do sistema em /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd.bundle/Contents/Resources/StdExclusions.plist
. É um arquivo XML que você pode abrir com qualquer editor de texto.
Meu (Mac OS 10.5.8) é assim:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<!-- paths we do not want to include in a system backup -->
<key>PathsExcluded</key>
<array>
<string>/.Spotlight-V100</string>
<string>/.Trashes</string>
<string>/.fseventsd</string>
<string>/.hotfiles.btree</string>
<string>/Backups.backupdb</string>
<string>/Desktop DB</string>
<string>/Desktop DF</string>
<string>/Network/Servers</string>
<string>/Previous Systems</string>
<string>/Users/Shared/SC Info</string>
<string>/Users/Guest</string>
<string>/dev</string>
<string>/home</string>
<string>/net</string>
<string>/private/var/db/Spotlight</string> <!-- old tiger location of the Spotlight db -->
<string>/private/var/db/Spotlight-V100</string> <!-- old tiger location of the Spotlight db -->
</array>
<!-- paths we need to include in backup so we can restore disk structure, but don't want to backup contents -->
<key>ContentsExcluded</key>
<array>
<string>/Volumes</string>
<string>/Network</string>
<string>/automount</string>
<string>/.vol</string>
<string>/tmp</string>
<string>/cores</string>
<string>/private/tmp</string>
<string>/private/Network</string>
<string>/private/tftpboot</string>
<string>/private/var/automount</string>
<string>/private/var/log</string>
<string>/private/var/folders</string>
<string>/private/var/log/apache2</string>
<string>/private/var/log/cups</string>
<string>/private/var/log/fax</string>
<string>/private/var/log/ppp</string>
<string>/private/var/log/sa</string>
<string>/private/var/log/samba</string>
<string>/private/var/log/uucp</string>
<string>/private/var/run</string>
<string>/private/var/spool</string>
<string>/private/var/tmp</string>
<string>/private/var/vm</string>
<string>/private/var/db/dhcpclient</string>
<string>/private/var/db/fseventsd</string>
<string>/Library/Caches</string>
<string>/Library/Logs</string>
<string>/System/Library/Caches</string>
<string>/System/Library/Extensions/Caches</string>
</array>
<!-- standard user paths we want to skip for each user (subpath relative to root of home directory) -->
<key>UserPathsExcluded</key>
<array>
<string>Library/Application Support/SyncServices</string>
<string>Library/Caches</string>
<string>Library/Logs</string>
<string>Library/Mail/Envelope Index</string>
<string>Library/Mail/AvailableFeeds</string>
<string>Library/Mirrors</string>
<string>Library/PubSub/Database</string>
<string>Library/PubSub/Downloads</string>
<string>Library/PubSub/Feeds</string>
<string>Library/Safari/Icons.db</string>
<string>Library/Safari/HistoryIndex.sk</string>
</array>
</dict>
</plist>