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Migration Assistant Advice

I want to selectively move content from my 2009 iMac running OS 10.6.8 Snow Leopard to my new 2019 iMac running OS 10.14.6 Mojave. I have my old iMac backed up with Time Machine to a G Drive.

I am guessing using Migration Assistant would be the best way to do that.

I've never used Migration Assistant before and was wondering if there is anything I need to be aware of before I begin. Any advice to make sure everything goes smoothly would be greatly appreciated!


iMac Line (2012 and Later)

Posted on Aug 27, 2019 4:42 PM

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Posted on Aug 28, 2019 9:13 PM

You are way over thinking Migration Assistant, all you have to do is let it run per the advice provided and it will take care of everything. Connect your old Time Machine backup via a USB cable to the new Mac, launch MA, select what you want migrated and let it run. If you migrate your preferences it will migrate only the ones that are migratable, it will not "fill up" you new system with worthless stuff. All you need to worry about is your applications, what I'd recommend doing is updating all the apps you can on the old system and also check to see if they are compatible with Mojave. The ones that are compatible will migrate, the ones that are not will not migrate. This is super simple, when users over think the process they over complicate a very simple process.

9 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Aug 28, 2019 9:13 PM in response to tkadell

You are way over thinking Migration Assistant, all you have to do is let it run per the advice provided and it will take care of everything. Connect your old Time Machine backup via a USB cable to the new Mac, launch MA, select what you want migrated and let it run. If you migrate your preferences it will migrate only the ones that are migratable, it will not "fill up" you new system with worthless stuff. All you need to worry about is your applications, what I'd recommend doing is updating all the apps you can on the old system and also check to see if they are compatible with Mojave. The ones that are compatible will migrate, the ones that are not will not migrate. This is super simple, when users over think the process they over complicate a very simple process.

Aug 28, 2019 11:04 AM in response to tkadell

I'm going to piggyback on Woodmeister50's reply: given the differences in operating systems, I think you are going to find that much (most?) of your software needs to be upgraded to newer versions. With this in mind, I think you'd be better of migrating just your data. Then check each of your applications manually to see if the version you have is the most current version and/or if it is supported on Mojave.

Migration Assistant Advice

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