Advice needed for transfer from old iMac to new Mac Studio

[KrisKT]

Info: I have a 2017 iMac running High Sierra 10.13.6

Because I have a work laptop that is using Monterey, I never upgraded the iMac OS (partly due to not enough memory available on the internal SSD hard drive!). We use the iMac mainly for internet, mail and Photo/movie management.

A long time ago I moved the iTunes (12.8.3.1) and Photos (3.0) libraries to an external hard drive to save space. All of it is backed up every day to another external hard drive using Time Machine.

Ok, so I just bought the new Mac Studio to be the central home computer for the next 5+ years. My daughter is getting into 3D printing and segmenting medical CT data so we are excited about it!

Will just copying the iMac iTunes and Photos folders from the external hard drives over to the new Mac’s SSD work fine (even though Photos is now version 5)?

And will doing the steps listed below really work to make my iPhone start syncing seamlessly with iTunes on the new Mac Studio right away??

I want to always manually sync my iPhone to the Mac Studio using a USB cable. The iPhone backup is located in my iTunes folder and it is current.

—Step 1: Click on Finder on the old Mac and select Mac's hard drive. Find the iTunes folder:
~/Music/iTunes

—Step 2: Copy the iTunes backup folder and iTunes Preferences files from the old Mac to the new Mac.

The locations are:
~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/

~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iTunes.plist

—Step 3: Connect the iPhone to the new Mac. Authorize the new computer and open iTunes. Now you should be able to sync iPhone to new Mac without losing data.


Also, my iPhone Apple ID is my iCloud account, but iTunes uses my other Apple ID that shares my media with our family Apple One premier account. I am unsure if that will affect any of this transfer process.

I do have the updated AnyTrans on the old iMac. I do have AppleCare for the iPhone and the Mac Studio, but I have always gotten great advice here first

Thank you all in advance for your advice!!

 

[danqi]

This is super interesting to me as I am planning to move from a 2010 Mac Pro running Sierra to a Mac Studio and am also wondering how to transfer all my Music, Podcasts, Audiobooks and iPhone backups, since iTunes doesn't exist anymore. I also backup locally and have a large library of downloaded Podcasts that aren't available anymore.

And like you I am also using a different Apple ID for iTunes.

(Bonus question: How do I transfer my emails...?)

 

[Fishrrman]

OP:

What kind of backup do you keep now?
Time Machine?
CarbonCopyCloner?
SuperDuper?
Something else?

Easiest way to migrate is to have a backup drive, then let setup assistant "do it for you".

You will probably have to "manually migrate" the large music and photo libraries to the new internal drive (if you wish for them to be there).

BE AWARE that you may experience permissions problems unless you take care when moving them, particularly if you have set up a "brand new" account on the new Studio.

In that case, you probably want to do this first:
- attach external drive (not the backup)
- let its icon mount on desktop
- click ONE TIME on the icon, then summon the get info box for it (command-i)
- at bottom of get info, click lock and enter your NEW password (for the Studio)
- put a check into "ignore ownership on this volume" (sharing and permissions)
- close get info

Now you can copy stuff from the external drive, and it will "come under the ownership" of the NEW account on the Studio, avoiding permissions errors...

 

[KrisKT]

Steps from jsoto last yr (Jan. 16, 2021):
This worked perfectly for bringing my High Sierra iTunes library (that was on an external SSD hard drive) over to the new Mac Studio running Monterey-- and it worked to keep my Media and Purchases Apple ID tied to the Music app (separate from my different iCloud Apple ID). Just follow his steps-- THANK YOU jsoto

And yes, also make sure that you Get Info (Command I) on the external hard drive and click ignore ownership on this volume. Thanks Fishrrman!



1. I de-authorized my M1 MBA on the Music App, then signed out of my account within the Music App.
2. Once that was done my iCloud Music Library was gone which is what I wanted.
3. I manually deleted the playlist names that iCloud Music Library left in the Music App.
4. Deleted the Music directory under ~user/myhomedirectory/music/music (it gets confusing because Apple Music App uses 3 directories with the same "Music" name.
5. Emptied my trash can
6. Copied my iTunes folder from my Mid 2010 MBP 15 i7 on macOS High Sierra to an external drive.
7. Then from the external drive copied the iTunes folder the the desktop of the M1 MBA
8. I option-started the Music App and selected to "Choose Library" option and pointed to the "iTunes Library.itl" file and it imported the playlists, artwork, etc.
9. Then opened the Music App, followed by Preferences, under "Files" changed the music media location to the Music folder created from within the "Media" directory created by Apple Music App.
10. Then proceeded to consolidate my library by having Apple Music copy iTunes Media over to the location I specified in the Music Preferences by using File/Library/Organize Library/Consolidate Files. It then copied all my iTunes Media over to it.
11. Sign into the Apple Music App with my account.
12. Authorize my computer.
13. iCloud Music Library, iTunes Match, Apple Music subscriptions activated with my sign-in and computer authorization.
14. Zero issues with Apple Music App. Everything in working order.
15. Delete the copied iTunes Folder from my old MBP from the desktop of the M1.
16. Empty the trash.
17. Enjoy Apple Music App to learn the changes from iTunes.

 

[KrisKT]

I have decided to use AnyTrans to take care of backing up/syncing my iPhone.

For Photos, I did have error messages and I ended up getting bumped up to a Senior Apple Support person. After getting error messages ("name or character too long for destination volume" which they sent a screenshot to Apple engineering to investigate) copying over the 452GB Photos library from an external SSD hard drive, I wiped the brand new Mac Studio hard drive and installed a fresh copy of Monterey (12.3.1). I made sure to turn off iCloud photos in my Apple ID login account (listed at the top of Systems Preferences) since I store everything locally only.

Then I tried again to copy the folder over to my account Pictures folder. I got a different error message that said it couldn't copy because a Photos library already existed (which it didn't because I had dragged it to the trash and emptied the trash). I found a post on the Apple discussion boards that said just drag the folder to the desktop to copy over and THEN drag it to the Pictures folder. That WORKED!!!

Music and Photos are both working and have my 25+ years worth of content, albums, etc. So far everything is in working order!