Picking Up An M1 MBA Tomorrow – Can I Not Migrate Data?

[Fazzl]

Hi everyone. I'm picking up an M1 MBA tomorrow. I saw this post about restores not working. Am I still able to transfer data from my existing MBP or do I have to setup as new and manually transfer individual files over? Thanks.

Restoring Apple Silicon M1 Macs Leading to macOS Installation Errors

Several customers who purchased a new Mac with an M1 Apple Silicon app have discovered an issue when attempting to restore the machine, which leads to it becoming non-functional and stuck on error screen that says "An error occurred preparing the update. Failed to personalize the software update".

www.macrumors.com

 

[mark34]

Don’t people keep everything on the cloud at this point? I never restore laptops. Just sign in and sync. I do keep a local copy of most things on my laptop, but never exclusively local. I don’t understand what needs to be transferred?

 

[KPOM]

Hi everyone. I'm picking up an M1 MBA tomorrow. I saw this post about restores not working. Am I still able to transfer data from my existing MBP or do I have to setup as new and manually transfer individual files over? Thanks.

Restoring Apple Silicon M1 Macs Leading to macOS Installation Errors

Several customers who purchased a new Mac with an M1 Apple Silicon app have discovered an issue when attempting to restore the machine, which leads to it becoming non-functional and stuck on error screen that says "An error occurred preparing the update. Failed to personalize the software update".

www.macrumors.com

Migration Assistant works fine. The posters tried to use Internet Recovery, which is no longer supported on M1 Macs.

 

[johnparjr]

Did mine today no issues

 

[tamara6]

Don’t people keep everything on the cloud at this point? I never restore laptops. Just sign in and sync. I do keep a local copy of most things on my laptop, but never exclusively local. I don’t understand what needs to be transferred?

Clearly not everyone is like you - lots of people do keep things exclusively on their laptop. For those people, the stuff they keep locally needs to be transferred.

For example, I do not keep copies of my taxes or any of my financial records or info in the cloud. No need for Google or Box or whoever to be able to have access to that.

Also, it seems like the stuff in the Library folder should be transferred.

 

[palebluedot]

Don’t people keep everything on the cloud at this point? I never restore laptops. Just sign in and sync. I do keep a local copy of most things on my laptop, but never exclusively local. I don’t understand what needs to be transferred?

No to blow your mind but some of us even host our own clouds locally on our own networks!

 

[Biscottino Croccantino]

Got my Mini earlier today, did a partial transfer (applications, libraries and a selection of files) with Migration Assistant. Put my MBP16 in target mode, and connected both Macs with a thunderbolt cable. Was relatively painless.

 

[Theophil1971]

Got my M1 MBA in the mail today. I ran the Migration Assistant to transfer all data from my old MBA (2018), without a hitch... All went well without any problems.

 

[Zazoh]

Don’t people keep everything on the cloud at this point? I never restore laptops. Just sign in and sync. I do keep a local copy of most things on my laptop, but never exclusively local. I don’t understand what needs to be transferred?

I always do set up as new on all device purchases. Not only is critical data in cloud, I don’t want to migrate junk to my new device. Especially library folders which are full of files from apps I’ve tried.

It has always bothered me that when the method to uninstall is to drag app to trash there are usually scores of config files left behind in library. Many people are different and some don’t mind filling up drive space with applications and files that are never used.

 

[ngonazcom]

Goods

 

[Unregistered 4U]

OCD and computers rarely mix well. I remember having to talk people through moving their applications back to the “Applications” folder It just didn’t make sense to them that a “game” application should be sitting RIGHT THERE next to video editing and productivtity!

 

[Rob9874]

I'm picking up my M1 MBA today, replacing a 2019 MBA. I was planning on doing a migration, but like the idea of setting up as new, installing the software I need, and just transferring over my music, photos, documents, etc. Is there anything I'm missing as to why I might want to consider a full migration?

 

[JimmyjamesEU]

Don’t people keep everything on the cloud at this point? I never restore laptops. Just sign in and sync. I do keep a local copy of most things on my laptop, but never exclusively local. I don’t understand what needs to be transferred?

You must have very little stuff.