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Clean Install and Migration Assistant

Dr. Rek

Dr. Rek

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 29, 2018
16
1
Oakland, CA
I'm considering doing a clean install of mac os x.
But I'm wondering if then using migration assistant afterwards to restore from a backup drive all my apps and data, will counteract the benefits of clean install?
Will there be a benefit or would it just be a sisyphean task?
 
This is how I always upgrade, not from a backup drive though.
I actually install to new partition / drive then after a quick test that things work I'll then migrate from the old install.
 
Dr. Rek said:
I'm considering doing a clean install of mac os x.
But I'm wondering if then using migration assistant afterwards to restore from a backup drive all my apps and data, will counteract the benefits of clean install?
Will there be a benefit or would it just be a sisyphean task?
Click to expand...

You can easily migrate the errors back from backup. Of course, some strange issues may be still clear up. However, no big benefit over direct clone.
 
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I agree with h9826790...some problems might be fixed but other issues might be transferred from the previous system...if you have any issues that you're aware of.
 
migration is amazing but if there is a problem it will migrate it back on to the clean system :(
i did this when troubleshooting a laptop which did random hard lockups, clean install tested for a day with no problems then gave back to user who used migration assistant reinstalled bad app had hard lockups!
i clean installed 3 times before i found out what the problem was.

but if you have no problems migration assistant is super handy, i use it when migrating OS drive to a SSD or bigger SSD ect..
 
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This is why I test the new OS first with a new user before migration, then if issues crop up after migration I'll know that it is something I'm carrying over allowing scope of the issues to be narrowed down significantly.
 
Alright, I don't have any issues, but I felt like my 2010 Mac Pro needs a house cleaning since it got a new faster and bigger boot drive.
It's more work, but I could reinstall all apps fresh, and manually bring over my photos library, contacts, and fonts as an optimum workflow based on the comments here.
I don't think I would need to worry about any other system level stuff, as my other data is still on other hard disks in the system.
Unless I'm missing something in that workflow proposal?
 
Dr. Rek said:
Alright, I don't have any issues, but I felt like my 2010 Mac Pro needs a house cleaning since it got a new faster and bigger boot drive.
It's more work, but I could reinstall all apps fresh, and manually bring over my photos library, contacts, and fonts as an optimum workflow based on the comments here.
I don't think I would need to worry about any other system level stuff, as my other data is still on other hard disks in the system.
Unless I'm missing something in that workflow proposal?
Click to expand...
If you are not having any problems, I don't think a clean install and starting over is worth the trouble. It can be a lot of work.

What I would do is run the app Etrecheck. It will create a PDF report showing all launch and startup items on your system. Go through that report and look for any old utilities/apps you no longer use or need and remove them and the associated caches and files. That will leave you with a clean system only running what you still need, and get you much the same result as a clean install and starting over would.
 
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Weaselboy said:
If you are not having any problems, I don't think a clean install and starting over is worth the trouble. It can be a lot of work.

What I would do is run the app Etrecheck. It will create a PDF report showing all launch and startup items on your system. Go through that report and look for any old utilities/apps you no longer use or need and remove them and the associated caches and files. That will leave you with a clean system only running what you still need, and get you much the same result as a clean install and starting over would.
Click to expand...

You know, I fully agree with this, but I have to say it didn’t work well for me.

I tried for weeks on end to run down an APM sleep issue. I couldn’t fix it to save my life.

I finally tried a clean install and started from scratch. Et Viola, problem solved.
 
Weaselboy said:
I did give the caveat "If you are not having any problems"... Sounds like you had something odd going on there.
Click to expand...

Yup, I’d still like to know what it was, but it was less time consuming to just reinstall everything. Troubleshooting was yielding no results, I eventually decided it was above my skill level and just faster to start over.

I’ve got everything backed up in 3-5 different locations (depending on material), so the only loss was time & hair.
 
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