transfer mac to mac

When you buy a new Mac the easiest, quickest and most reliable method is to simply connect the old Mac's Time Machine External Hard Disk to the new Mac using a USB cable before you turn on the new Mac. When you start the new Mac for the first time it will startup Setup Assistant (SA), SA will get to a point where it asks if you are migrating from another computer, select Yes  and follow the on-screen prompts and it's done! It is THAT simple.

If you have already done SA on the new computer then simply connect the Time Machine External Hard Disk using a USB cable and launch Migration Assistant (MA) which is located in Applications - Utilities - MA. Then follow the on-screen prompts.

The ONLY difference between MA and SA is MA will create a new user account that you need to log into.

Both SA and MA migrate applications (not 32 bit apps) , data files, settings, it does not migrate Mac OS itself. Some professional apps such as Adobe and Microsoft apps may require re-installing their apps as they will not allow them to be migrated. As long as you kept the security keys for installing their apps, it is not a big deal.

Finally, please NEVER EVER use WiFi to migrate, this will fail in almost 100% of the situations in my experience. WiFi was never intended to move large amounts of data at one time.

Can I ask an additional question? Does this work the same if I connect the New Mac to the Old Mac (rather than an external TM back?). My goal is to set up my new Mac to be identical to my current ("old") Mac with the same User account (and not created a secondary User Account.)

Wouldn't this be quicker connecting Thunderbolt 3 New Mac to Old Mac?

Thanks!

In theory yes, however the method I described is MUCH more reliable than connecting the 2 Macs together.

The black Apple symbol that says "Apple recommended" indicates that Apple endorsed this method.

Frustrating update: Took new Mac (presumably it has Big Sur in it) connected it to my Time Capsule which has the TM backups in it, launched the Mac, it starts Setup, asks the country, language, (for some reason it by passed the choice to get on wifi, still has the little wifi symbol full full bars in the upper right), got to where it asks if you want to setup from another Mac, TM or backup.

I chose that it saw the Time Capsule and my name (which I presume is the data inside it). I clicked that and for 24 hours it is stuck on ""Loading backup...." and never gets to where it shows a list of what you'd like to copy or move.

I backed out and tried it a couple of times and then left it all night and its still stuck like this.

I have never setup from a TM before and always used MA and connected Mac to Mac but ended up with the unwanted second user.

Any thoughts? Is there an issue because this is Big Sur and the older Mac is on Catalina?

Thanks!

Just an update for any others who have this issue: I started over the next day and and did a fresh new Startup of the new iMac but this time I did it from a new TM backup to an external drive hard connected to the Mac via Thunderbolt 3 (NOT a Time Capsule) and it went smooth as silk! I believe the issue the first day was that even though I had the TC connected via ethernet, it was trying all night to do it wirelessly.

Lesson learned! Thanks rkaufmann87

Your welcome.

Okay I will do that - thank you!

Your welcome.