Migration assistant questions.

[Shivetya]

Will be migrating next week (hopefully). I do not want a full migration.

What I need are
a) Mail
b) Pictures
c) Music
d) Tax data

Can migration assistant do just that?

Reason for the question, the last time I migrated I had both machines with the same name (I like the name) and it gave me all sorts of fits over that.

 

[r0k]

Will be migrating next week (hopefully). I do not want a full migration.

What I need are
a) Mail
b) Pictures
c) Music
d) Tax data

Can migration assistant do just that?

Reason for the question, the last time I migrated I had both machines with the same name (I like the name) and it gave me all sorts of fits over that.

I'm sure there are ways to limit what Migration Assistant brings over but why bother over such a simple matter as a machine name? I would sync everything. Then I would immediately go to System Preferences->Sharing and change the machine name on either the old machine or the new machine. Problem solved.

 

[Fishrrman]

[[ What I need are
a) Mail
b) Pictures
c) Music
d) Tax data
Can migration assistant do just that? ]]

You can set up Migration Assistant so that it will only migrate the contents of your home folder (and nothing else).

Assuming that you keep your mail, pictures, music, and tax data _in_ your old home folder, this should do the job for you quickly and easily.
(Note, in a case like this, I would get the NEW Mac all set up with a new "temp" account first, and then connect the old Mac and launch Migration Assistant. I would migrate ONLY the previous home folder, perhaps user settings as well. Then, if I wanted automatic login, I would set up the Mac to log in using my original account)

If you keep some of this data elsewhere, it might be easier to just connect the two Macs together and do a "finder copy" of selected items.

Or... copy some of the items to an "intermediary" drive (a USB flashdrive is handy for such things), and then copy from the intermediary drive to your new Mac...

 

[Weaselboy]

Will be migrating next week (hopefully). I do not want a full migration.

What I need are
a) Mail
b) Pictures
c) Music
d) Tax data

Can migration assistant do just that?

Reason for the question, the last time I migrated I had both machines with the same name (I like the name) and it gave me all sorts of fits over that.

See the checkboxes from the Migration Assistant (MA) shot below. You do have some control over what gets migrated.

It sounds like you had trouble last time because you already had a user account when you tried to run MA and it then copies duplicate data into the user folders and makes a mess. What you want to is run MA during the new system setup and you won't have this problem.

If you have already setup the system make a new temp account then from within that account delete your real account and run MA from the temp account. This will also avoid the duplicate issues you had.