Migration Assistant
Does M-A allow me to transfer only selected applications, data files, etc., from the old Mac to the new one? Or is it "all or nothing" as implied in the Support instructions.
Question marked as
No, MA is an all or nothing proposition, if you tell it to migrate applications it will migrate all the applications it can. By "it will migrate all the applications it can" there are some applications that will not migrate due to licensing restrictions the developers put on them, 2 good examples are Adobe and Microsoft. You cannot migrate their premium products however they can be re-installed assuming you have the license keys or passwords they supply when you bought them. If you no longer have these keys you must contact the developer to work out a solution.
Other possible circumstances when apps will not migrate is a very old version may be stored on the old Mac, whereas the new Mac has current versions of Mac OS and that app cannot run on the new version. In these situations it is wise to update all third party apps prior to migrating.
Finally, we have been advised that 32bit applications will not run on future releases after Mojave. That means they must be either upgraded or another app solution must be found.