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User profile for user: Vicki Porter
Vicki Porter Author
User level: Level 1
26 points

Moving Time Machine to a different Mac

I am moving from an iMac to a MacBook Pro, both on Snow Leopard. My old iMac has an external drive for its Time Machine. Can I use this same drive and Time Machine setup for my MacBook Pro? Is Time Machine smart enough to start backing up in the new environment? Or do I have to do something to set it up?

This must be a common situation but I cannot find anything on the Apple site about it.

Thanks for your help.

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.4)

Posted on Aug 13, 2010 3:48 PM

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User profile for user: Kappy
Kappy
User level: Level 10
361,741 points

Posted on Aug 13, 2010 4:02 PM

Yes, you can use the same backup drive. TM will begin a new backup of your new computer in a separate folder from that of your old computer. TM will not continue to backup to the same backup set of your old computer.

See User Tips for Time Machine for help with TM problems. Also you can select Mac Help from the Finder's Help menu and search for "time machine" to locate articles on how to use TM. See also Mac 101- Time Machine.
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User profile for user: Kappy
Kappy
User level: Level 10
361,741 points

Aug 13, 2010 4:02 PM in response to Vicki Porter

Yes, you can use the same backup drive. TM will begin a new backup of your new computer in a separate folder from that of your old computer. TM will not continue to backup to the same backup set of your old computer.

See User Tips for Time Machine for help with TM problems. Also you can select Mac Help from the Finder's Help menu and search for "time machine" to locate articles on how to use TM. See also Mac 101- Time Machine.
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User profile for user: Pondini
Pondini
User level: Level 8
38,863 points

Aug 13, 2010 6:01 PM in response to Vicki Porter

Vicki Porter wrote:
I am moving from an iMac to a MacBook Pro, both on Snow Leopard. My old iMac has an external drive for its Time Machine. Can I use this same drive and Time Machine setup for my MacBook Pro? Is Time Machine smart enough to start backing up in the new environment? Or do I have to do something to set it up?


Effective with Snow Leopard, you'll get this prompt when the first backup of the new Mac starts:
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If you select +Create New Backup,+ Time Machine will keep the two sets of backups separate.

If you select +Reuse Backup,+ Time Machine will "add on" to the existing backups.

See #B5 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum), for details.
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Moving Time Machine to a different Mac

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