Does backing up using Time Machine transfer downloaded internet apps to new mac?

They would be restored later with Migration Assistant, or with Setup Assistant at first run if you choose to do it then. The selector for Migration Assistant (whichever time you run it) looks like this older one:

You can choose to restore ALL third-party Applications from the /Applications folder, but you can not pick and choose automatically.

It should save everything to the backup and then restore everything to the Applications folder in the new machine. I use a clone myself, and a cloned external drive can be used for Setup Assistant.

You might be able to use Setup Assistant directly, although it gets kind of expensive with the proper cables/adapters needed for Thunderbolt 2 to Thunderbolt 3 transfers.

With a Time Machine backup, or a clone backup, you must be careful to use Migration Assistant/Setup Assistant.

If you just re-clone to the new machine, or use Time Machine to restore all, you risk clobbering a more modern or custom version of MacOS, overwriting with an older one that can not run the new machine, and it will not boot up.

You need to leave the MacOS and its Drivers on the new machine whole, and NOT over-write them.

The general rule is:

"A Mac can run no version OLDER than the one it shipped with."

There are a few subtle twists, but that generally holds. one exception is if your Mac was issued with a certain MacOS, and later gets a newer one, you can usually run the one that shipped with the first version of your exact model Mac.

steve359 wrote:

Dare I ask first, as the OP has not specified ... is the previous system on a different OS than the new system will have? What affect might the have on the migration?

I've run Setup Assistant 3 times. They were always across different versions of OSX/MacOS using FireWire, then ethernet. There were cases where applications were copied over but didn't work, but that's not terribly unusual. However, it copied over documents, libraries, settings, etc including my entire iTunes library.

I'm not sure how it would work in the future as new Macs are more or less storage limited (with cost the obstacle). I have a 1 TB SSD that installed myself, but I would need to limit what would get transferred to a 128 or 256 GB SSD.

so is it safe to say that any of:

The original Mac

A Time Machine Backup of the original drive

A clone of the original drive

can be used to do this migration with Migration Assistant/Setup Assistant ??

Grant Bennet-Alder wrote:

so is it safe to say that any of:

The original Mac

A Time Machine Backup of the original drive

A clone of the original drive

can be used to do this migration with Migration Assistant/Setup Assistant ??

I'm pretty sure that a clone on an external drive will be treated like a computer in Target Disk mode.

Dare I ask first, as the OP has not specified ... is the previous system on a different OS than the new system will have? What affect might the have on the migration?