Starting from scratch

[hewhohoggs]

Hello all, this is my first post-
I was wondering what your opinions on starting from scratch are. I want to erase everything off of my HD except for a select few files/programs. I bought a 2012 MBP 13" a few months ago and I just ended up migrating all of my old files from my old computer over.
I'd like to save some of them in a folder, keep a few of my programs, ie, Microsoft Office 2011, etc. I feel like erasing the HD would clean it up and give me a fresh start.
What are your thoughts on this? My computer just feels so cluttered now because I really didn't organize my last computer very well. Is there a way to do this without moving files and folders over to an external HD?
Thanks for any input!

 

[jomirrivera]

Hello all, this is my first post-
I was wondering what your opinions on starting from scratch are. I want to erase everything off of my HD except for a select few files/programs. I bought a 2012 MBP 13" a few months ago and I just ended up migrating all of my old files from my old computer over.
I'd like to save some of them in a folder, keep a few of my programs, ie, Microsoft Office 2011, etc. I feel like erasing the HD would clean it up and give me a fresh start.
What are your thoughts on this? My computer just feels so cluttered now because I really didn't organize my last computer very well. Is there a way to do this without moving files and folders over to an external HD?
Thanks for any input!

Create a time machine backup, erase everything, restore the things you want from time machine.
or
Create a folder with everything you want to save and put it on an external drive, the wipe your HD and transfer the files back

 

[hewhohoggs]

Create a time machine backup, erase everything, restore the things you want from time machine.
or
Create a folder with everything you want to save and put it on an external drive, the wipe your HD and transfer the files back

What about programs like MS Office? Will they transfer over?

 

[jomirrivera]

What about programs like MS Office? Will they transfer over?

If you use time machine, you can transfer your apps, if you use the second option you can't transfer the installed apps unless you have the installer saved in the external drive.
I would encourage you to use time machine is very simple and easy, assuming you have an external drive big enough.