You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!
When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.
When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.
I am using Migration Assistant to transfer SOME of my files from my old iMac. The old iMac is infected with some kind of virus and I do not want to transfer the virus! I also have a time machine backup of the iMac on an external drive. All I want to transfer are my photos and some docs and files. How should I proceed? Can I select individual files or folders?
MacBook Air 13″, macOS 11.5
First, there is no reason to ever install or run any 3rd party "cleaning", "optimizing", "speed-up", anti-virus, VPN or security apps on your Mac. This user tip describes what you need to know and do in order to protect your Mac: Effective defenses against malware and other threats - Apple Community.
There are no known viruses, i.e. self propagating, for Macs. There are, however, adware and malware which require the user to install although unwittingly most of the time thru sneaky links, etc.
Anti Virus developers try to group all types as viruses into their ad campaigns of fear. They do a poor job of the detecting and isolating the adware and malware. Since there are no viruses these apps use up a lot of system resources searching for what is non-existent and adversely affect system and app performance.
There is one app, Malwarebytes, which was developed by a long time contributor to these forums and a highly respected member of the computer security community, that is desshoigned solely to seek out adware and known malware and remove it. The free version is more than adequate for most users.
Also, unless you're using a true VPN tunnel, such as between you and your employer's or bank's servers, they are useless from a privacy standpoint: Public VPN's are anything but private.
So run Malwarebytes on your old iMac before using Migration Assistant to transfer the files.
First, there is no reason to ever install or run any 3rd party "cleaning", "optimizing", "speed-up", anti-virus, VPN or security apps on your Mac. This user tip describes what you need to know and do in order to protect your Mac: Effective defenses against malware and other threats - Apple Community.
There are no known viruses, i.e. self propagating, for Macs. There are, however, adware and malware which require the user to install although unwittingly most of the time thru sneaky links, etc.
Anti Virus developers try to group all types as viruses into their ad campaigns of fear. They do a poor job of the detecting and isolating the adware and malware. Since there are no viruses these apps use up a lot of system resources searching for what is non-existent and adversely affect system and app performance.
There is one app, Malwarebytes, which was developed by a long time contributor to these forums and a highly respected member of the computer security community, that is desshoigned solely to seek out adware and known malware and remove it. The free version is more than adequate for most users.
Also, unless you're using a true VPN tunnel, such as between you and your employer's or bank's servers, they are useless from a privacy standpoint: Public VPN's are anything but private.
So run Malwarebytes on your old iMac before using Migration Assistant to transfer the files.
twinpower wrote:
Old Toad,
It did not address the extraordinarily slow performance of my old iMac.
Download and run Etrecheck. Etrecheck is a diagnostic tool that was developed by one of the most respected users here in the ASC and recommended by Apple Support to provide a snapshot of the system and help identify the more obvious culprits that can adversely affect a Mac's performance.
IMPORTANT:
Before running Etrecheck assign Full Disk Access to Etrecheck in the Etrecheck's Privacy preference pane so that it can get additional information from the Console and log files for the report:
Also click and read the About info to further permit full disk access.
Copy the report
and use the Additional Text button to include the report in your reply.
Then we can examine the report and see if we can determine what might be causing the problem.
Sorry to tell you this, but Macs do not get virus's. Can't be done. You have something else going on. You might want to tell us what the problem is, in specific detail, and someone here can help you resolve it.
I belive that a Mac can get a virus, or call it what you want, malware, etc. I got something on my iMac by inadvertently downloading a fake Adobe software upgrade. It ruined system performance and made my Safari virtually unusable due to cascading windows of random advertisements. That's what I'm concerned about passing over to my new MacBook Air.
Thanks. I am going to junk my old iMac as soon as I can transfer some of my old files from it over to my new MacBook Air. I have a Time Machine backup of my old iMac - can I choose certain files to transfer, such as my photos or documents, without bringing all files over? I couldn't tell from what I could read in the Migration Assistant instructions. If so, would that be very risky in terms of potentially bringing over the bug, if I was only moving over specific files like that?
Old Toad,
Thanks for the recommendation about Malwarebytes. I downloaded it and after two installations was able to run the free version (the installation menus are confusing and try to trick you into opting into the subscription service). It fixed the malware problem that I had in my Safari and Google Chrome, where multiple unwanted browser tab windows of miscellaneous marketing offers would cascade in the browser. It did not address the extraordinarily slow performance of my old iMac.
Given the problems that I have had with this iMac, I do not trust the Apple Migration Assistant tool to move some files over to my new MacBook Air, because I couldn't get comfortable that the Migration Assistant would allow me to get to the point of selecting individual folders or files to migrate. This is also not addressed in sufficient detail in the user instructions - it simply says something like 'you can then move your files and your applications'. I did not want to move all files for fear of bringing over some kind of malware. Based on this I uploaded all of my photos to iCloud and moved the other files that I wanted to a thumb drive. At this point the iMac is essentially ready to be scrapped.
I appreciate your and everyone's suggestions.
A Mac cannot get a virus, but it can get malware. To remove any malware, run the Malwarebytes tool.
Jack
The distinction between "virus" and "malware" is not trivial. However, your problems are real and Malwarebytes is a start. There is also VirusBarrier Scanner and Detectx Swift.
Migration of files from iMac with virus to new MacBook Air
