MacMini User Separation to 2018 Mini

[thood341]

I have 2011 MacMini that my wife and I share (High Sierra). I am in the process of buying a new 2018 mini and want to pull my account/data from 2011 and leave that for wife. I'm into photography and want to move images and iTunes to my system. She has some purchased apps as do I. Her iTunes account was the first on the system so anything purchased on the 2011 is tied to her account, but I do most of my purchases (iTunes) from my phone / iPad but all items are synch'd back to 2011 mini.
1.) can I backup / restore to the new system and remove her account
2.) should I backup / restore only account to new system, then move my data
3.) should I fresh install and copy data over. ( Lightroom for photos )
4.) should I fresh install both systems

2011 is i5 with 16GB ram / 512GB internal. wife is a very light user - mostly web browsing with a couple of purchased apps.

thanks for the suggestions / ideas


Travis

 

[techwarrior]

Migration Assistant can do this for you. I don't recall if it imports all users or if you can specify which users to migrate. But all Apps, settings, and files can be imported. The old Mac will still have all of its stuff intact. You can do this over the network, or from a Time Machine backup.

If you don't already have Family Sharing enabled, you might want to do so. Most purchased MAS apps can be shared. Most apps from the old Mac with their own license keys should migrate and use the existing entitlement. Some may phone home and restrict use to a single Mac, but most allow installing on a handful of Macs. Worst case is you might have to repurchase a couple of apps.

 

[thood341]

Migration Assistant can do this for you. I don't recall if it imports all users or if you can specify which users to migrate. But all Apps, settings, and files can be imported. The old Mac will still have all of its stuff intact. You can do this over the network, or from a Time Machine backup.

If you don't already have Family Sharing enabled, you might want to do so. Most purchased MAS apps can be shared. Most apps from the old Mac with their own license keys should migrate and use the existing entitlement. Some may phone home and restrict use to a single Mac, but most allow installing on a handful of Macs. Worst case is you might have to repurchase a couple of apps.

[doublepost=1552603170][/doublepost]Thanks very much for your reply. Seems pretty ease if there is a tool already designed for this. Will do a little more research on tool. Longtime PC guy - still learning my way around MacOS and the tools.


Thanks !!!

 

[techwarrior]

When a Mac with a fresh install of macOS first boots, you are offered the option to restore users, files, settings, etc from another Mac, PC, or Time Machine backup. If you run this before creating a new user login, your old account from the Mini or TM backup of the Mini will be recreated as the account on the new Mac. If you create a new account and restore later, go to Applications > Utilities > Migration Assistant to kick it off.

 

[Fishrrman]

My suggestion:

1. Get an external USB3 drive
2. Connect it to the OLD Mini
3. Download CarbonCopyCloner from here:
http://www.bombich.com/download.html
(CCC is FREE to download and use for 30 days, this costs you nothing)
4. Use CCC to clone the contents of the OLD Mini to the external drive

Now, when the new one arrives:
5. Take it out of the box and set it up, but DO NOT TURN IT ON YET
6. Connect the cloned backup
7. NOW press the power-on button and begin setup
8. At the appropriate time, setup assistant will ask if you wish to migrate from another Mac or drive. YES, you want to do this
9. Give setup assistant some time to "digest" everything. BE PATIENT
10. Setup assistant will present you with a list of stuff you can migrate.
11. I suggest you migrate everything, BUT WITH ONE EXCEPTION.
12. You can go into the "accounts", and UNCHECK your wife's account. Now, setup assistant will "leave it behind" and bring over ONLY YOUR STUFF.
13. Let setup assistant do its thing. AGAIN, BE PATIENT.
14. When done, you should see the login screen for YOUR account.
15. Login and "look around". Does everything look ok?
16. If so, done!