Migration Asst Question

[nickm11]

I'm buying a new iMac and will use Migration Asst to move the old to the new.

Is it possible to continue to use the old iMac online with Safari and email, while moving the stuff to the new iMac?

 

[Mr_Brightside_@]

No.
ETA: unless you use Time Machine from an external drive to the new Mac.

 

[Fishrrman]

As Mr. Brightside says, the BEST WAY to migrate is to use a backup drive of some kind.

It can be created with
time machine
or
CarbonCopyCloner
or
SuperDuper

I think the "cloned backups" (CCC or SD) go a bit faster than tm backups, but perhaps that's just me. If you've never used either of the above before, SD is VERY easy to understand for a new user. It's also FREE for this job.

Just before the new Mac comes, do your "last backup" on the old Mac.
When the new Mac arrives, take it out of the box and set it up.
Connect the backup drive BEFORE you power it on for the first time.

Now power on the Mac and begin setup.
When setup assistant asks if you wish to migrate, YES, you do.
Point the way to the backup drive and give SA time to "digest" things.

Setup Assistant will present you with a list of stuff that can be migrated:
- accounts
- apps
- settings
- data

Unless the old Mac is pretty old (more than 5 years), you could probably just migrate everything. But be aware that some older apps might need upgrading, or might not run at all.

With an older Mac, you could consider UNchecking the option to migrate applications, but still bring over everything else.
And then... try apps one-at-a-time to see if they'll work for you.

This is another reason I like cloned backups -- because you can run apps from the backup, just as you can with any other drive that mounts in the finder.
Makes it EASY to see if they'll run before you put them on the new Mac.

Good luck.

 

[nickm11]

As Mr. Brightside says, the BEST WAY to migrate is to use a backup drive of some kind.

It can be created with
time machine
or
CarbonCopyCloner
or
SuperDuper

I think the "cloned backups" (CCC or SD) go a bit faster than tm backups, but perhaps that's just me. If you've never used either of the above before, SD is VERY easy to understand for a new user. It's also FREE for this job.

Just before the new Mac comes, do your "last backup" on the old Mac.
When the new Mac arrives, take it out of the box and set it up.
Connect the backup drive BEFORE you power it on for the first time.

Now power on the Mac and begin setup.
When setup assistant asks if you wish to migrate, YES, you do.
Point the way to the backup drive and give SA time to "digest" things.

Setup Assistant will present you with a list of stuff that can be migrated:
- accounts
- apps
- settings
- data

Unless the old Mac is pretty old (more than 5 years), you could probably just migrate everything. But be aware that some older apps might need upgrading, or might not run at all.

With an older Mac, you could consider UNchecking the option to migrate applications, but still bring over everything else.
And then... try apps one-at-a-time to see if they'll work for you.

This is another reason I like cloned backups -- because you can run apps from the backup, just as you can with any other drive that mounts in the finder.
Makes it EASY to see if they'll run before you put them on the new Mac.

Good luck.

In the past I've used both methods, but I'm moving from OS13 to the newest OS, so migration asst would probably work best for me. Also I'm going from Intell to M chip.