Time Machine Restore Button Greyed Out, How to Fix?

This page covers two parts to help you resolve Time Machine greyed out issue. If you are having this issue on your Mac, follow to fix it now:

Overview of Time Machine Greyed Out

"I've been using Time Machine to back up my MacBook Pro, first in Yosemite and now it's in EI Capitan. Yesterday, when I entered Time Machine, it showed me the backup, but the Restore button was greyed out. I have some Office documents accidentally deleted and need to be restored from Time Machine. How can I recover the lost files since the Time Machine restore greyed out?"

Time Machine, the built-in backup feature of your Mac, allows you to backup all the files, including apps, music, photos, email, documents, and system files automatically. When you have data loss, you can restore the data from your backup. However, things don't go smoothly all the time. You may find the time machine restore button greyed out occasionally just the same as the above user experience, which may be caused by the following issues.  

• Time Machine backup HDD was formatted.
• Time Machine backup was incomplete.
• Time Machine backup was corrupted.

Fixes for Time Machine Restore Greyed Out

The time machine backup greyed out may result from not using the right way to "Enter Time Machine" or there is a hard disk error. Try the solutions below to fix the problem.

The right ways to Enter Time Machine:

Solution 1. First, open the Finder window, then click "Enter Time Machine".

Solution 2. Reboot your Mac > press Command + R until apple logo shows up. Release the buttons and enter macOS Utilities. Choose "Restore From Time machine Backup". It will not grey out in here. 

If there is a backup hard disk error, like formatting, corrupted, there is no way but using professional Mac data recovery software to recover the lost files feasibly.

How to Recover Data on Mac When the Time Machine Restore Greyed Out

If you can't restore data from time machine backup, don't frustrate, here is the simplest workaround to recover lost files on Mac with EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for Mac. It is an all-in-one Mac drive recovery software that helps recover files on Mac without Time Machine. It supports data recovery from Mac trash bin, hard drive, memory card, flash drive, digital camera, and camcorders. You use this reliable tool to recover Mac deleted files, photos, audio, music, emails from Mac due to deletion, formatting, lost partition, virus attack, system crash, and more.

Step 1. Search for lost files

Select the disk location to search for lost files (it can be an internal HDD/SSD or a removable storage device) on macOS Sierra, High Sierra, Mojave, Catalina, Big Sur, Monterey, Ventura, and the latest Sonoma. Click the "Search for lost files" button.

Note: Before data recovery, you'd better click "Disk Backup" from the left sidebar to create a backup of your Mac to avoid further data loss. After backing up, the software can recover data from the Mac backup, and your computer can wirte new data again.

Step 2. Go through the scanning results

EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for Mac will immediately scan your selected disk volume and display the scanning results.

Step 3. Select the file(s) and recover

In the scan results, select the file(s) to preview and click the "Recover" button to have them back.