Upgrading tonew mac2 mini

beachmonk wrote:

I have a 2014 mac mini running Monterey. I bought a 2023 mac2 mini running Ventura. I have them both cabled and running on the same monitor as separate computers switching between through the monitor as needed. My question is, If I connect the old mac as Target Disk startup and move some files to the new Mini, then, If I want to finish the migration through a time machine back-up, will I get duplicate files/apps? Problems?

Yes! The first thing you should do is Migrate from the 2014 Mac mini to the 2023 Mac mini.

see > Transfer to a new Mac with Migration Assistant - Apple Support

I have TB SSDs so no problem with disk space. The old mini is using only about 500GB of space.

I want as clean a Mini start-up as possible. I am avoiding strict time machine migration as I have seen residual 32 app files listed in the System Report.

Yes you can spend a little time cleaning up what you do not want from the old Mac mini before Migrate from it.

However, I am concerned with losing my iCloud Key and Chrome password storage.

If you follow the support article, then all of your settings will properly migrate to the new Mac mini.