I must say goodbye to my 2010 iMac.
How can I remove my documents and preserve them? Some are very old but precious.
I want to banish and destroy any personal/financial information, and photos are preserved in iCloud.
What's the process for saving what is important and making sure the rest is gone for good?
iMac
Get a USB drive, plug it into the old Mac, copy the important files over from the old Mac to the USB drive. Now plug the USB drive into the new Mac and copy the files from the USB drive to the new Mac. Keep the USB drive as a backup.
Then buy a new USB drive and set it up for Time Machine backups from your new Mac.
Back up your Mac with Time Machine – Apple Support (UK)
After you have copied all the important files off the old Mac do the following.
What to do before you sell, give away or trade in your Mac – Apple Support (UK)
Get a USB drive, plug it into the old Mac, copy the important files over from the old Mac to the USB drive. Now plug the USB drive into the new Mac and copy the files from the USB drive to the new Mac. Keep the USB drive as a backup.
Then buy a new USB drive and set it up for Time Machine backups from your new Mac.
Back up your Mac with Time Machine – Apple Support (UK)
After you have copied all the important files off the old Mac do the following.
What to do before you sell, give away or trade in your Mac – Apple Support (UK)
Make sure the drive you use is formatted APFS or OS X Extended (journaled). You don't want to use FAT 32 or ExFAT formatting as that's for Windows computers.
Thank you for the explicit instructions. I appreciate it more than words can say!!!
Best wishes to you.
I want to transfer data to an external hard drive from my old Mac. How do I do that?
