I know that there is some migration assitant, but there are relatively few files in comparison to what I want to bring with me onto my new Mac. All my music which is about 10GB. according to iTunes. All my videos, about 25GB and a few misc. PDF's and documents. Here is the problem. I have an external hard drive with a lot on it, 250GB out of the 500GB capacity. How should I go about getting everything onto the hard drive and OSX being able to read it? Also, currently I have a lot of duplicates in my iTunes library, how do I go about transferring a single copy of the song I want so that my Mac would read duplicates either. I hear that I have to format my drive, but I don't think I have enough free space on my computer to put all my files onto my computer, format it for mac, and then transfer every thing back again. I can do a few trips back and forth, that doesn't bother me, but this iTunes duplicate thing is something I really want to avoid. Also, once I transfer all my files from my windows pc to my mac, should I delete the files on my hard drive and then use time machine to make a proper backup?
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Best way to transfer files from Win to Mac?
- Thread starter Tydog07
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Someone else may be able to give you a more comprehensive response, but this should at least get you started. Incidentally, it would probably help people answer your questions a little more clearly if you broke up the things you want to do into list form.
In terms of transferring files, if you've been using your external hard drive with your PC, it can already be read by your Mac. It will be formatted in either FAT (more likely, if you never reformatted it) or NTFS. The MacOS can, out of the box, read and write FAT, and read (only) NTFS. There are some free (or paid) add-ons that will let it also write NTFS if you're so inclined, but that's not necessary to transfer files.
On the iTunes duplicate, you've really got two options: Either delete the duplicates manually before (or after) the transfer, or use one of the many utilities that exist to automate the process once you've moved your iTunes library over.
The iTunes transfer, you can find as many walkthroughs as you want by searching Google for transfer iTunes Windows to Mac. Videos and PDFs, just drag and drop them into your Mac "Movies" and "Documents" folders (or wherever you want them), and you're good to go. If you haven't already, you'll probably want to install Perian (a codec package that allows Quicktime to play pretty much anything) and/or VLC and/or MPlayer OSX Extended (all free).
As for what to do after you've got everything on your Mac, my recommendation would be pretty much as you said--dump EVERYTHING on the external onto the Mac's hard drive, then erase and reformat the external as HFS Extended (the Mac-native format) and use it as a Time Machine backup drive for your Mac. Or, if you don't care for Time Machine and don't need it to work with your PC anymore, do the same but instead of designating it for Time Machine just manually back up your files to it. Time Machine is easier, though, and you're less likely to flake and not back up something important. It also will back up your bookmarks and other preferences, which is good.
In terms of transferring files, if you've been using your external hard drive with your PC, it can already be read by your Mac. It will be formatted in either FAT (more likely, if you never reformatted it) or NTFS. The MacOS can, out of the box, read and write FAT, and read (only) NTFS. There are some free (or paid) add-ons that will let it also write NTFS if you're so inclined, but that's not necessary to transfer files.
On the iTunes duplicate, you've really got two options: Either delete the duplicates manually before (or after) the transfer, or use one of the many utilities that exist to automate the process once you've moved your iTunes library over.
The iTunes transfer, you can find as many walkthroughs as you want by searching Google for transfer iTunes Windows to Mac. Videos and PDFs, just drag and drop them into your Mac "Movies" and "Documents" folders (or wherever you want them), and you're good to go. If you haven't already, you'll probably want to install Perian (a codec package that allows Quicktime to play pretty much anything) and/or VLC and/or MPlayer OSX Extended (all free).
As for what to do after you've got everything on your Mac, my recommendation would be pretty much as you said--dump EVERYTHING on the external onto the Mac's hard drive, then erase and reformat the external as HFS Extended (the Mac-native format) and use it as a Time Machine backup drive for your Mac. Or, if you don't care for Time Machine and don't need it to work with your PC anymore, do the same but instead of designating it for Time Machine just manually back up your files to it. Time Machine is easier, though, and you're less likely to flake and not back up something important. It also will back up your bookmarks and other preferences, which is good.
I just did a check my drive is formatted for NTFS, so I'm in the clear for not having to put everything on a desktop and then transfer it back over after it has been formatted.
After I put all the files on the Mac, I'll format the drive for HFS and then put the things that don't need to be on the mac full time back onto the external drive.
I'll try to rule out the duplicates before I switch over to the mac, what are some names of free utilities that can help me delete/remove duplicates? They are quite bothersome. Since I have music spread out over three computers, I'll just make one common music folder and go from there.
Can Windows still read HFS formatting? And does Dropbox work nicely with the Documents folder in OS X?
To remove duplicates within your library on your PC, follow this step-by-step guide for iTunes:
http://en.kioskea.net/faq/9226-how-to-remove-duplicate-tracks-in-itunes
Then simply use a third-party software to transfer your library from your old pc to your new mac. You can find out more at this blog:
http://transfer-itunes-to-new-computer.blogspot.com/p/how-to-transfer-itunes-from-pc-to-mac.html
http://en.kioskea.net/faq/9226-how-to-remove-duplicate-tracks-in-itunes
Then simply use a third-party software to transfer your library from your old pc to your new mac. You can find out more at this blog:
http://transfer-itunes-to-new-computer.blogspot.com/p/how-to-transfer-itunes-from-pc-to-mac.html
Thanks but I already transferred my library to my mac, including the duplicates, what is a third party program that will remove all my duplicates and delete them?