Migrating files from my old MBP to my new MBP

[Eeyore]

I have a MacBook Pro from 2009, and I'm buying the latest MacBook Pro. When I use my Time Machine backup to migrate my accounts, applications, documents, and other settings and files from the old MBP to the new MBP, is there a choice between migrating absolutely everything and doing some kind of "cleaner" install?

I'm asking because I wonder if some of my system or application preference settings or application support files are out of date, corrupt in some way, or are fine-tuned for the old hardware. I know that bad preferences or other settings files can explain occasional glitches, so there's some merit to starting in a fresh way.

I know that to be absolutely clean I could skip the migration step during setup, reinstall all of my applications (if I can figure out how), and migrate files from a backup manually, but I'm wondering if there's an approach that's less severe and less trouble.

Does it make sense to do any tidying of this type when upgrading? Is it worthwhile? Is it possible?

 

[bezludny]

Did you try Migration Assistant? I've just moved all my required data, applications and even Postrgress databases to new MBP 2016 from MBP 2012. Works great.

Also you can choose which data do you want to copy (Applications, User files etc)

 

[Murgatroyd314]

I did a manual migration, to get rid of years of accumulated crud. I copied over the contents of my Documents and Music folders, along with the handful of applications that I use on a regular basis (though it turned out that I needed to download newer versions of half of them), and left everything else behind.

 

[Antairez]

I usually keep important files in the cloud so they can be accessed by various devices. When I got my new machine I set it up as new because most of the applications on my older mac were outdated anyway, plus you never know what garbage might get transferred during the migration process -- which couples with all the latest bugs that the new system introduced; might trick you into thinking its the older configuration files that are causing all these bugs ... and eventually ended up with another clean install all over again.

 

[Eeyore]

Did you try Migration Assistant? I've just moved all my required data, applications and even Postrgress databases to new MBP 2016 from MBP 2012. Works great.

Also you can choose which data do you want to copy (Applications, User files etc)

I now have the new MacBook Pro. Yes, I used Migration Assistant and choose to migrate everything.

I did a manual migration, to get rid of years of accumulated crud. I copied over the contents of my Documents and Music folders, along with the handful of applications that I use on a regular basis (though it turned out that I needed to download newer versions of half of them), and left everything else behind.

I migrated it all because I wasn't sure that I'd know which items from the Library folders to copy or not copy. Did you manually copy preference and application support files for the applications you copied from the Applications folder? Did you have to copy anything else to keep the applications working?

I usually keep important files in the cloud so they can be accessed by various devices. When I got my new machine I set it up as new because most of the applications on my older mac were outdated anyway, plus you never know what garbage might get transferred during the migration process -- which couples with all the latest bugs that the new system introduced; might trick you into thinking its the older configuration files that are causing all these bugs ... and eventually ended up with another clean install all over again.

That was my concern and the reason for this thread. But I ended up copying everything to make sure that I had everything I needed rather than trusting myself to copy the correct minimum set of files.