Time Machine to only restore mail/iTunes on new iMac

[TheDane]

Hi all,

this is my first post - hope you can help me with this question regarding Time Machine.

I am (eagerly) awaiting my new iMac 27 i7 and what is left of my old iMac 24 is a full Time Machine backup.

Now, when the new machine arrives, I am interested in only restoring my mails including accounts/settings - and iTunes (actually only what i bought on iTunes and not the rest - as i intend to ALAC all my cd's - but this is "nice to have").

How can I do this? I am afraid the when picking restore user settings it will restore "much more" than this. Is it possible to specify to the detail i want?

I am wondering if I could just file-restore all mail-files, but that seems to be aiming for trouble or inconsistencies.

And last - the dumb quesion: When plugging my old Time Machine into the machine it will ask if I want to use it as Time Machine Backup. Should I say yes to that, or wait untill I can get into the help programmes and use the assistant? Reason I am asking is my paranoia on that if I say yes, it will erase my backup to start a "fresh" new machine TM

Hope my questions...(and your answers) make sense!

 

[Tumbleweed666]

I am wondering if it wouldn't be far simpler (and thus less error prone) to restore everything, and then just delete the folders you don't want? Just a couple of minutes to delete everything in your main folders except iTunes?
Then, empty the trash, and start again with a new TM backup.

 

[TheDane]

Thanks for your reply Tumbleweed - and you might be right. I am probably having old Windows-querks...so I am afraid i restore too much unwanted from the old machine. Had a lot of applications and stuff on there, that I am taking the moment to clean up when getting the new machine.

Would't I be having too many folders to delete - and more so, not even know what folders i can delete in my User folder etc. or not!?

 

[Tumbleweed666]

Thanks for your reply Tumbleweed - and you might be right. I am probably having old Windows-querks...so I am afraid i restore too much unwanted from the old machine. Had a lot of applications and stuff on there, that I am taking the moment to clean up when getting the new machine.

Would't I be having too many folders to delete - and more so, not even know what folders i can delete in my User folder etc. or not!?

I think this is what you want "Restoring an existing Time Capsule backup to a new Mac", last section ,see point 13 looks like you just pick and choose.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1177

Note re your iTunes, I would bring back the entire music folder, IME iTunes stores stuff in a funky way and if you just restore the iTunes folder alone there may be some stuff you need that doesn't come over. Thats my Windows experience with it anyway.