My 3 year old MacBook Pro utterly died a few days ago. Fortunately I have everything backed up on time machine. My question is this. What is the best way to restore my old image to a new M1 Mac? Can I do a full restore or should I reinstall all purchased apps individually and only restore files? Thanks in advance for any tips/help.
MacBook Air (2020 or later)
Move your content to a new Mac
Caution when moving from Old MBP with whatever Version of macOS was installed. The New Mac is M1 and right away there can be Big Issues. The Old machine may have been running Big Sur but the Applications may Not Be Compatible with the M1 CPU.
Have seen a few persons migrating Everything from Old to New and especially to M1 and had a disaster. Personally - would only migrate the User Account and make sure the Old Account and New Account bear the same name and properties - Admin.
Then, migrate separately, personal files over and stop there. Any Newer Application would be best Installed Directly from the Trusted Developer
Move your content to a new Mac
Caution when moving from Old MBP with whatever Version of macOS was installed. The New Mac is M1 and right away there can be Big Issues. The Old machine may have been running Big Sur but the Applications may Not Be Compatible with the M1 CPU.
Have seen a few persons migrating Everything from Old to New and especially to M1 and had a disaster. Personally - would only migrate the User Account and make sure the Old Account and New Account bear the same name and properties - Admin.
Then, migrate separately, personal files over and stop there. Any Newer Application would be best Installed Directly from the Trusted Developer
I have done several new M1 Macs using a TM backup (easiest) from an Intel Mac running Big Sur and have not had any issues. However, if you do not mine the extra work doing what P. Phillips stated is the safest route.
Restore from time machine to M1 mac
