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however silly this question might seem, there is a legitimate reason behind it... I would like to go back to Sierra on my iMac. So after creating a bootable Sierra installer I intend to wipe the drive, install Sierra and restore from a Time Machine snapshot. So I would like it to be the latest Sierra snapshot possible... Is there any way of finding out which one it is? I don't remember when exactly I installed High Sierra and want to avoid guessing blindly.

P.S. I take it is possible to restore from daily Time Machine snapshots or do I need a special backup that I should have done in the past especially for this case?

Thanks

dalogrus
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  • You cannot 'downdate' & restore from Time Machine. It will not let you. You will need a clone of your drive from before the update - see https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/271104/revert-to-el-capitan for how much trouble it is even with a set of solid backups & clones. – Tetsujin Dec 15 '17 at 18:07
  • I would look at the backup sizes, and assume it's the biggest one. That's no sure-fire way, and my suspicion is that you could find an entry in the logs somewhere, but I'm not 100% sure. You could also check the date you downloaded high Sierra if you installed it the same day or the day after. Do a get-info on it. – Harv Dec 15 '17 at 18:24
  • Hi, I must say I’m at a loss here ... This article claims that I can restore from a backup: https://m.imore.com/how-downgrade-macos – dalogrus Dec 15 '17 at 18:44
  • You can only use Time Machine to downgrade if it hasn't been used since the upgrade. i.e. you swapped out the drive before you upgraded. I thought it was going to be that easy... it wasn't, my TM drive was now 'too new'. You can try it & see where you get, but I'd make sure to have clones of everything before attempting it. – Tetsujin Dec 16 '17 at 08:46
  • This is so ironic! I wanted to downgrade for 2 reasons: 1. because 10.13.2 broke my connection to my Time Machine over WiFi (as I upgraded no more than 2 weeks ago my last backup was probably still Sierra) and 2. my gaming experience in WoW has been ruined by Apple’s Nvidia drivers in 10.13.2 (low frame rates, freezes etc.). I seem to have fixed reason 2. by installing Nvidia’s experimental driver for 10.13.2 (the official one for 10.13.1 won’t install). At the same time I have probably ruined my chances to downgrade by connecting the iMac to router via Ethernet last night- Time Machine – dalogrus Dec 16 '17 at 10:17
  • Must have overwritten the old Sierra backup now seeing the NAS with the drive over Ethernet... – dalogrus Dec 16 '17 at 10:19

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