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I only want to migrate my email, contacts, & messages apps and the associated files and resources (Accounts, Chats, mail boxes, etc.) My other general apps are 32 bit and I don't want to bring them to the new Mac at this time.
I prefer to simply copy my documents, photos, and movies and organize them in a new way on the new Mac rather than have the new Mac mirror the old one.
Best advice?
iMac 21.5″ 4K, macOS 10.14
Q - " Migrate some utilities & files to a new Mac "
Move your content to a new Mac
A- If the new computer is going to be the Apple Silicon M1 Equipped Computer - would suggest Only Migrating the User Account and nothing more.
Some have had success and other have been left with a mess when Migrating everything.
Above is from observations of some users experiences appearing on these Forums
1 - Apple Silicon with either Big Sur macOS 11 or Monterey macOS 12 Only Support everything 64 bit and there is no workaround.
2 - Issues that may exist on the older computer will be migrated to the New Computer. This would badly pollute the new Original and Pristine installation of the new OS.
3 - Applications, extensions and Software Drivers may or may not even work on the new computer.
4 - IMHO - it would be best to only install new application etc Directly from the Developer or the Apple Apps Store.
5 - Due Diligence on New Applications and make sure they are Monterey / Big Sur compatible and factor in the ARMs CPU of the Apple Silicon Computer
I believe during migration you can select from a list of what you want to bring over to your new computer and you can uncheck (or not check) 'apps'. Other than that you could also mirror your machines and then simply remove the apps you don't want on the new machine, removing apps is a simple process of dragging them to the trash. Either way, to organize them in a different way you would have to do that part manually.
When you migrate your account back, it will include all your mail, music, photos, etc.
All of these are completely separate from the respective applications.
As P. Phillips said: migrate ONLY the users.
System applications like Mail, Music, Photos, Safari, Preview etc will not be migrated, anyway; the new system includes newer versions of those, and the old ones might not even work.
Third party applications that you do need should be installed fresh, either from the App Store, or their respective websites.
If I move the account information, and then later manually move Mail.app and Messages.app (rather than moving all the applications in the folder during Migration) should my mail and messages appear when I open those apps in the new iMac?
Just migrate your account!
Mail and Messages will pick it up from there, and ALL your mail and messages will appear automatically.
As I said before, Mail, Messages and every other system application are already there, and you must NOT try to bring the old versions.
The Applications themselves will not move
If iCloud is enable for the Apple Mail and Messages - the Data , E-mails and Message in iCloud will sync back to the New computer
EDITED
You are welcome and thank you too.
Do come back to the Apple Support Communities ( ASC ) in the future, if / or when additional questions may arise
Enjoy the new machine 😃
Do you know if the Mail and Messages apps move with the account information, or if they are moved like all the other apps in the Applications folder?
The Apple Mail and Messages apps are part of macOS and then do not migrate/no reason to migrate. If you migrate a user, their Mail and Messages are included in the migration.
Migrate some utilities & files to a new Mac
