Best practice for moving data to new Mac?

[idealcheese]

I'm upgrading to a new, faster Mac and, having chain-migrated to my current Mac via Migration Assistant from who knows how many Macs ago, I don't want my entire user library copied to the new machine. From past experience, I remember not having much of a choice of what data gets transferred via the MA, so it would seem I have to start from fresh and copy over my personal data. A few years back I ran into a lot of problems when I created a new user and tried to copy files from one user account to another—literally all of my permissions were wrong and it took months of frustration and some data loss to sort it all out—so I want to make sure I do this right.

If I set up my new Mac with a new user account and connect my old Mac to the new one via target disk mode, how can I copy files over without running into permissions issues? Thanks!

 

[Fishrrman]

My suggestion (and my opinion only):

If you want to COMPLETELY avoid permissions problems, do this:
1. Get an external drive
2. Download either CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper (both are FREE to download and use for 30 days, so "trying it my way" costs you no money)
3. Use either of the above to clone the contents of your current Mac to the external drive
4. Once you have the NEW Mac set up and running with your new account created, connect the cloned backup
5. Let the icon mount on the desktop -- DO NOT "open it" yet
6. Click ONE TIME on the icon, then type "command-i" (eye) to invoke the "get info" box
7. At the bottom of get info, click the lock icon and enter your (new account) password
8. In "sharing and permissions", put a check into "ignore ownership on this volume"
9. Close "get info".

Now you can copy just about anything from the backup drive onto your new Mac, and anything you copy will "fall under the ownership" of your new account.
Result: no permissions problems.

One other thing:
You CANNOT copy the "first level of sub-folders" from one account to another.
By "first level" sub-folders I mean the folders named documents, movies, music, pictures, etc.
HOWEVER -- you CAN copy the items that are INSIDE OF these folders. This includes the iTunes music folder, Photos library, iPhoto library, etc.
Be aware that an app like Photos may need to "update" the old library to work with the newer version of Photos. Seems to me there's a utility you have to get from Apple in some cases.
I sense that you'll work this out on your own!