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Yonizzle

macrumors member
Original poster
Feb 8, 2005
75
49
Durham, NC
When I get a new laptop, I plan to hand down my 16-inch Intel MBP to an employee. He has his own personal 13-inch Intel MacBook (I think Pro? Maybe Air?) and presumably will want to migrate everything from there into this new machine. That's fine, but if he winds up doing any substantial amount of work stuff on the 16, I’d prefer for him to set up a separate macOS User login.

He has his own user account (with its own Apple ID that I control) on the shared Mac mini in our shop, so it feels like the preferred way to set up two accounts is to use Migration Assistant twice: once to bring over all the settings from his older MacBook, then a second time to migrate just his account from the mini.

Does anyone know if this is doable? Migrate a whole computer first, and then other user(s) as needed from other computer(s)?

Or should I just let him migrate from his machine and then set up the work account from scratch and hope that using the work Apple ID will bring over most of the data/settings we need?
 

Ben J.

macrumors 6502a
Aug 29, 2019
653
349
Oslo
Short answer: you can import a user account to a mac at any time by connecting a mac or a drive with an account or copy/backup of an account, and launching Migration Assistant from the Apps/Utilities folder.

And, of course, you can manage/delete user accounts in System settings, Users/Groups.
 
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Fishrrman

macrumors Penryn
Feb 20, 2009
28,356
12,466
Power OFF both laptops.

Connect 13" MB to the 16" MB using a USBc cable.
DO NOT power on yet.

Power on the 16", get to the finder.
Open Migration Assistant.

NOW power on the 13".

See if MA "recognizes" the presence of the 13" as a source from which to migrate.

Assuming that it does, let MA "digest" everything on the 13" (it will take a while).

MA will present you with a list of things that can be migrated
Applications
Accounts
Settings
Data

I would select the employee's account, and also select settings and data.
I would NOT select applications.

Then, turn MA loose and see if that does the job.
 

FreakinEurekan

macrumors 603
Sep 8, 2011
5,585
2,633
If he's using the computer for both work & personal, a good option is to create a second Volume and a second macOS install - migrate his personal stuff to his personal volume; migrate his work stuff to the work volume.

It means a reboot to get from one volume to the other, but it prevents mixing personal & work data and apps.

I do this with my own MacBook.
 
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Yonizzle

macrumors member
Original poster
Feb 8, 2005
75
49
Durham, NC
Thanks everyone. I assumed it was doable, but it isn’t super clear from Apple’s site, so I just wanted to get confirmation from people who’d actually done this themselves!
 
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