Mac Mini Day - My first Mac

[mantan]

After years and years, I'm finally taking the plunge into the Mac world. My Mac Mini is scheduled to arrive today. It'll be strange leaving the PC world using a PC since my dad got me a PC Jr. for my birthday as a kid. My family has had iPads and iPhones for years. Both my kids got MacBooks to take to college. But I always resisted. I wanted a desktop and the M1 Mini was getting such good reviews that I had to take the plunge. I'm also getting a monitor (LG27UN850), keyboard (MX Keys) and mouse (Master Series). Figured I might as well swap everything out from my ancient PC.

My question is about the PC migration tool. Is it worth it move everything over by migration...or to just copy things over from a flash drive? Most of the stuff saved that I need to keep are pics, MS office documents etc. I have huge iTUNES library, but it doesn't seem like it makes sense to copy that over as I heard Mac no longer uses iTunes and we have Apple Music with our playlists.

 

[ashman70]

Congrats on your M1 Mini, I love mine!. I have never done a migration from PC, only from another Mac so I can't commend on how well it works. As for iTunes > Music, I've also not done this, so not sure how you would import your music but Google is probably your friend for this.
I also just got the MX Keys and MX Master 3 mouse, love them both.
Make sure you do all the available updates on your mini, 11.2 fixed the BT issues, although I can't seem to wake my Mini with my BT accessories, I have to use a wired mouse to wake it up. 11.2.1 is also out as well.
Have fun!

 

[Fishrrman]

RULE #1 regarding making the move from the PC to the Mac:
Plan on keeping the PC set up and running for at least a few weeks after you initially set up the Mac and have everything you want "working" with it.

You want to do this just in case something isn't working for you on the Mac yet.
With the PC "still there" and still running, you can "go back" and get things done.

I've been a Mac guy for 34 years now, and have had very little contact with Windows over that time. So I can't really help with Apple's "PC migration tool", because I have no idea what it is.

But I would suggest you do things this way:

Get an external USB3 drive, with a large enough capacity to hold everything (or at least "most everything") you want to move. It's possible a large USB flash drive might work if you have nothing else.

I'd gather up the MS Office stuff, into one or more folders.
They can go into the "documents" folder in the account you create on the Mac, OR... they can go into another folder/folders anywhere you like, with whatever name you like.

Pics:
You didn't tell us what photo processing app you use on the PC.
Apple's "Photos" will probably be able to import them, or if there's a Mac equivalent to the PC app you're already using (example: Lightroom), it may be able to just "read the library" directly.

Music:
You CAN still use iTunes on the new Apple m1 Macs by way of a clever freeware app named "RetroActive". What I like most about it is that iTunes still has the free streaming internet radio tuner, whereas the new "Apple Music.app" doesn't.

In any case:
I believe Apple Music.app can still read and use your existing iTunes library.
If not, it might be able to import the music.
If not, you may STILL be able to access the music using a 3rd party player.
So... don't throw the huge iTunes music library out!

Again, the important thing is to get all the files-to-be-migrated onto an external USB3 drive. It will then be "archived" there, and you can "bring things over the to Mini" in a step-by-step process.
DON'T try to do it all at once.
Get one issue done (such as the MS Office stuff), then move on to the pics, etc.
It will go easier this way.

Final thing:
Your external drive should NOT be in "NTFS" format (I think that's what it's called).
I believe "exfat" is what you want.

Good luck!

 

[mantan]

Or not. I ordered my Mini from Apple. Since they aren't doing store pickup, everything is being shipped. My order is has been stuck in Louisville. There is a snowstorm forecast to hit Dallas on Sunday. We can't handle winter weather as a metro area, so I imagine UPS will backed up all next week.

I think I'll just pick it up locally at Best Buy tomorrow.

 

[iMav]

I think I'll just pick it up locally at Best Buy tomorrow.

Did you get your M1 mini? How are you liking it so far?

 

[MiniApple]

I too would keep the windows10 PC around and updated with the monthly patches and semi annual OS updates.
At least till you feel comfortable on M1/MacOS and everything you need works/can be done.

the MX Keys is a great keyboard and works on Windows, MacOS and iOS. Really neat.

As for the file migration, see here for more Migrating from Windows10 to MacOS (M1) | MacRumors Forums
I've used an external drive, simply copy/pasted my desired files to it from Windows, then plugged it into my mac and copied it. Had no issues this way and fresh start.

If you miss the Windows taskbar/start menu from there are some options like ubar(v4 which I use), active dock etc.
Had to change the Ctrl C/V shortcuts as MacOS works slightly different and drove me and my muscle memory nuts.

 

[circatee]

Just yesterday I picked up a Mac Mini from Best Buy. Albeit, I did want the 16GB (just to give it a longer life span). But, Best Buy do not offer any configurations, and Apple, one has to wait till mid-March.

Anyway, now to fully dive into the Mac OS. I did not do the migration tool. Saw too many negative posts about it. I set up the unit as 'new', and manually moved things over. After all, everything was in the Cloud (iCloud, OneDrive and Google Drive), so, it just made sense...

How is your setup coming along @mantan?

 

[harriska2]

Same here. Started with the PC jr. Went onto 8086 all the way up to my trusty i5 quad in 2011. My last Windows PC. I don't like forced upgrades so I stopped at Windows 7. I had three 4 tb hard drives on the pc and simply copied files over to my new 10 TB drive hanging off my mac Mini 2018. I use my old Dell keyboard and ended up getting a magic trackpad 2, which I dearly love. I even re-mapped the CTR key and the print screen in Mojave so that CTR-PRINT, CTRL-C, CTRL-V all work like my PC. It took a couple months to work everything out. Oh, and I had 50+ years of pictures in folders according to year. I ended up editing the pictures to have corrected dates, then curated the best photos into Photos using Reference pointers. Worked WONDERFUL. I like to keep my images in folders. And I still use itunes, it got sucked into my new machine no problem. I also use my Samsung 40" 4k 4-4-4 monitor - works super well. Overall, I'm so glad to be off of Windows. I now fully utilize Final Cut Pro, File Maker Pro and even re-purchased ABBYY Finereader. I have a really old scanner I love and purchased VueScan for it. I'm in heaven over here. Oh, and using my ipad with the mac is A-MAZ-ING. In zoom, I'm able to cast my ipad onto the Mac for screen sharing, thus able to use my pencil. Holy cows.

 

[mantan]

Did you get your M1 mini? How are you liking it so far?

I got it up and running. I set it up as new and plan to migrate everything over. Unfortunately the weather in Dallas went downhill fast. We were fortunate in that we never lost power. But I was tied up trying to help family who lost power, dealing with issues at work and our internet being out until today. So I probably won't get a chance to finish setting everything up like I like it until this weekend....

The biggest adjustment is just the different shortcuts. I was trying to create a document in Canva this afternoon and it was like doing it in a foreign language, lol.

 

[circatee]

I got it up and running. I set it up as new and plan to migrate everything over. Unfortunately the weather in Dallas went downhill fast. We were fortunate in that we never lost power. But I was tied up trying to help family who lost power, dealing with issues at work and our internet being out until today. So I probably won't get a chance to finish setting everything up like I like it until this weekend....

The biggest adjustment is just the different shortcuts. I was trying to create a document in Canva this afternoon and it was like doing it in a foreign language, lol.

Sorry to hear about the issues with the weather. Seeing it on the news, things look awful.
Take it easy out there. Good luck to you and your family...

 

[weaztek]

The biggest adjustment is just the different shortcuts. I was trying to create a document in Canva this afternoon and it was like doing it in a foreign language, lol.

Probably worth it to see if the app has preferences for keyboard shortcuts and add your favorites. My Photoshop is highly customized to suit my taste.