Migrating: MBP (2016) to MBP M1

[Derek87]

hi all,

i will soon (i hope) be taking delivery on a new M1 MBP to replace my 2016 MBP which is dying with a swollen battery and work is agreeing to give me a new machine.

i read with interest the other thread on migrating data to a new M1 MBP. it was a great read and it seems that my best bet is to put the MBP in target mode and use a USB-C cable to enable a speedy transfer.

my question is are there any "gotchas" people have encountered in moving things like profiles, apps, etc. from an Intel to Apple Silicon machine? i have long migrated or transferred data using Migration assistant and/or restoring a time machine backup. moreover, the current 2016 machine setup and user files/directory/configuration has been inherited for from many machines over the years:

MB (2006) -> 2009 MBP -> 2013 MBA -> 2016 MBP

i wonder if there is any value (acknowledging that it may create a ton of work for me) in starting from scratch. and if so, is there any reasonable piecemeal process of transferring things over beyond just copying file directories, etc.

i would love to hear peoples thoughts and experiences. thanks in advance!

 

[lcubed]

the big gotcha is whether all your current apps will run under big sur.
since i migrated straight from 10.13 to 11.0, several 32 bit apps needed replacement
(still mourning the loss of aperture!)

other than that, the migration was seamless.

 

[jdb8167]

hi all,

i will soon (i hope) be taking delivery on a new M1 MBP to replace my 2016 MBP which is dying with a swollen battery and work is agreeing to give me a new machine.

i read with interest the other thread on migrating data to a new M1 MBP. it was a great read and it seems that my best bet is to put the MBP in target mode and use a USB-C cable to enable a speedy transfer.

my question is are there any "gotchas" people have encountered in moving things like profiles, apps, etc. from an Intel to Apple Silicon machine? i have long migrated or transferred data using Migration assistant and/or restoring a time machine backup. moreover, the current 2016 machine setup and user files/directory/configuration has been inherited for from many machines over the years:

MB (2006) -> 2009 MBP -> 2013 MBA -> 2016 MBP

i wonder if there is any value (acknowledging that it may create a ton of work for me) in starting from scratch. and if so, is there any reasonable piecemeal process of transferring things over beyond just copying file directories, etc.

i would love to hear peoples thoughts and experiences. thanks in advance!

One thing to consider is how you use iCloud. I have almost every document stored in my Documents & Desktop folders in iCloud. Nearly everything else is transient or stored elsewhere like in a Git repository. So there isn't much downside for me to migrate manually. Most of the transfers are going to come from iCloud anyway. This would be a bad approach if you have capped internet though.

In general, I would still use migration assistant but I got nervous with the switch to the M1 and decided to do it manually this time. It wasn't too horrible. I think the only thing that I had to manually export and then import was my stored mail. I would also say that it depends on how customized your computer is too. I don't make many changes to the defaults and the ones I do change are easy enough over a day or two to set them back the way I like when I encounter the behavior I don't like. It depends.

 

[satcomer]

Just don’t transfer the the Networking options because they change all the time in upgraded Mac OS! The big addiction implemented was just few years ago for Jumbo Frames networking! Even some modern cheap routers seem not to support 10g Jumbo Frames!

 

[Derek87]

thanks for the helpful comments everyone.

 

[za9ra22]

I migrated from a 2016 MBP to an M1 MBA last month. Wow!

I preferred to go the route of a manual install of the apps I needed on there M1, and then a recovery of backed up data from the MBP rather than anything else, but that's just because it provided a better opportunity to review what I really wanted the new laptop to be used for, and to get a good feel for how it was working through the process of getting it ready, so I had some idea what to expect of it.

And the difference between these two laptops was like chalk and cheese!

 

[satcomer]

Also bookmark the excellent MacUpdate.com ! Their user reviews on software is great resource!

 

[nothingtoseehere]

Used Migration Assistant, with Target Disk Mode, to switch from early 2015 MBP to M1 Mac mini. Very smooth experience.