Can I add a new account from Time Machine?

Question

Level 1

4 points

Can I add a new account from Time Machine?

My wife's 2010 iMac has bitten the dust but it's fully backed up on an external drive using Time Machine. I have a much newer iMac so my questions are these:

1. Can I make her a new user on my iMac from the TM backup of her old iMac?

2. If so, what will come across in the way of files, music, photos, apps etc? And, what will she NOT have?

3. Will it in any way (other than taking up space on my HD) affect me as the main user of my own iMac?

Main reasons for this is that we're thinking we don't need two desktop macs in the same household basically.

iMac, macOS High Sierra (10.13.1)

Posted on Nov 14, 2017 9:11 AM

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Answer 1

mario49

Community Specialist

Nov 16, 2017 2:19 PM in response to Giggle Cream

Hey Giggle Cream,

Thanks for the update. You can use Migration Assistant to transfer a Time Machine backup of another computer to this computer. In the process of transferring the data over, you will have the opportunity to choose which files you want to migrate over to the user profile.

Continuing on your new Mac:

Select the information to transfer.

Click Continue to start the transfer. If you have a lot of content, the transfer might take several hours to finish.

How to move your content to a new Mac

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Answer 2

brenden dv

Community Specialist

Nov 15, 2017 2:03 PM in response to Giggle Cream

Greetings Giggle Cream,

Thank you for using Apple Support Communities. It seems like you want some more information about what will happen when you restore data from Time Machine. You can restore the entire user profile or choose which files to restore. If you restore the entire profile when you boot the computer you will have to choose which profile to log into. I would recommend you read these articles and use them to help troubleshoot the issue.

macOS Sierra: Recover your entire system

How to use Time Machine to back up or restore your Mac

Take care.

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Answer 3

Giggle Cream Author

Level 1

4 points

Nov 16, 2017 5:17 AM in response to brenden dv

Thanks for the reply but that wasn't quite what I was asking.

It's a TM backup from a completely different Mac and I would like to know what will and won't come across by setting her up as a user on my iMac from her TM backup from her old machine.

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