Transferring a single folder from a Time Machine to a different Mac
You can also copy the folder from Finder from /Volumes/&lt;Time Machine volume name&gt;/Backups.backupdb/&lt;Mac name&gt;/.

If your backup is on a network volume like a Time Capsule, open the sparse bundle file like /Volumes/Data/Your Mac.sparsebundle/ first.

You can also run a command like cp -a /Volumes/Time\ Machine/Backups.backupdb/Your\ Mac/2014-07-17-184058/HD/Users/username/folder ~/Desktop or tmutil restore /Volumes/Time\ Machine/Backups.backupdb/Your\ Mac/2014-07-17-184058/HD/Users/username/folder ~/Desktop in a shell.

Finder and tmutil restore remove extended attributes like com.apple.metadata:_kTimeMachineNewestSnapshot but cp doesn't.