Apple Silicon to Apple Silicon Mac Migration

[RumorConsumer]

I don’t seem to be able to get a straight answer anywhere:

Is it possible, on the initial boot of an Apple Silicon Mac, to run the migration assistant via thunderbolt while connected to the previous M1 mac?

It seems to only want to do wifi on first boot. While using the boot option/share disk tool i can get that to mount in the finder of the new machine no problem (amazing) but it requires first setting the new machine up with an account which is dumb.

I am a time machine lover too so that is an option but I’d love to be wrong and for this to work somehow.

 

[motomotomoto]

Pretty sure you can, but honestly you don't want to use migration assistant if possible. Takes some time but better to run clean install.

 

[0128672]

Another Time Machine user here, but I would use the 30-day free trial of Carbon Copy Cloner. I did that today (from M1 mini to M1 MBA) and it was so easy. Everything copied over perfectly. First time I've used it and I'm pretty impressed.

 

[RumorConsumer]

Pretty sure you can, but honestly you don't want to use migration assistant if possible. Takes some time but better to run clean install.

From M1 to M1 should be pretty clean. Clean install every few years and between architectures but same to same I’ll roll those dice.

 

[RumorConsumer]

Another Time Machine user here, but I would use the 30-day free trial of Carbon Copy Cloner. I did that today (from M1 mini to M1 MBA) and it was so easy. Everything copied over perfectly. First time I've used it and I'm pretty impressed.

That’s awesome. I love CCC. Great tool. Didn’t know it was usable that way on these new machines.

 

[Chancha]

I literally did the same. New Base 14" on first boot, already had the "old" M1 Air plugged, then upon setup I think I did give it WiFi password but it was only for Apple ID related authorization, the actual migration happened over the cable. I don't exactly remember but I didn't need to put the old M1 in target disk mode (in fact with Apple Silicon it is no longer straight forward as hold T reboot).

The 14" after restoring felt nothing wrong. I even came from Big Sur, not Monterey lateral migration.

 

[RumorConsumer]

I literally did the same. New Base 14" on first boot, already had the "old" M1 Air plugged, then upon setup I think I did give it WiFi password but it was only for Apple ID related authorization, the actual migration happened over the cable. I don't exactly remember but I didn't need to put the old M1 in target disk mode (in fact with Apple Silicon it is no longer straight forward as hold T reboot).

The 14" after restoring felt nothing wrong. I even came from Big Sur, not Monterey lateral migration.

I tried to do this and there’s a little icon that shows you what technology you’re using to do the transfer and it wouldn’t change from the Wi-Fi icon.