Transfer of data and applications issues

When you buy a new Mac the easiest, quickest and most reliable method to migrate from the old Mac to the new Mac -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. You will likely need a USB A to USB C adapter, you can find them on Amazon for $10 or less. 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 WI-FI to migrate, this will fail in almost 100% of the situations in my experience. WI-FI was never intended to move large amounts of data at one time.

Even though Apple say’s that you can, never migrate using Wi-Fi because it will fail 9.9 times out of 10.

The best way to move to a new Mac, is to connect your Time Machine backup drive to the new Mac and migrate from it during the initial setup.

The next best way to move to a new Mac, is to connect the old and new Mac’s directly together using an Ethernet cable.

Yes, except that connecting the 2014 Mac's Time Machine backup to the new M1 Mac during the initial setup, is the fastest, easiest and best way to Migrate.

Hi,

l’ll be transferring from a 2014 MAC to a M1 MAC. You say connect with an Ethernet cable, I was going to see if the transfer can be made using the thunderbolt ports on each MAC, if that is even possible. Currently my old MAC is connected to my router using an Ethernet cable. Should I instead use an Ethernet cable? The Ethernet cable attached to the old MAC would have to be connected to an Ethernet-to-Thunderbolt adapter which would then be connected to one of the Thunderbolt ports or a USB3-C port on the new MAC, correct?

Thanks

Thank you so much for your help.

You're welcome.

Tip: next time start a new question of your own, instead of asking on top of someone else's question.