Moving from High Sierra - Itunes, Photo and more

[stmfgmr]

Hallo everyone,
planning to get my hands on a M1 Pro soon, and it surely will be a huge upgrade coming from a pre-retina era MBP.
Said Macbook is still sporting macOS High Sierra, which still has iTunes and Apple Photo 3.0 as default apps for music and pictures respectively.
My question is pretty straight forward - what is the best way to move both libraries to the new macOS Monterey once I get my new laptop?
I have time machines backups and all, but I would rather avoid migrating all the content from the old mac and rather import only few baisc settings via migration assistant and take care of the rest (such as music and pics) later manually.
Thanks in advance for your help!

 

[maverick100]

I moved from Mojave to Big Sur. I ran into a Hugh problem moving from iTunes to Music and Apple TV.
I have a 10tb Itunes library stored on external drives. 95% of that is video. Every video playlist was lost. Only one playlist for audio made it across. Also hundreds of tv Season and moves were erased or lost some how. I spend almost a month re downloading content purchased from thru iTunes. I have 42 boxed sets purchased from iTunes; every playlist had to recreated. Also, content that was ripped from DVD's was not deleted but the play list was deleted. Not one file from ripped DVD's was lost. I just finished recreating all the play lists; and re downloading all the content from Apple. One more weird thing. I have my master iTunes Library; and two backups one onsite and one offsite. Content on those backups; would sometimes not be recognized by the Apple TV app or the Music App. I could play those files with QuickTime; but was unable to add them to playlists. One more thing when trying to sync Music or audio playlists; video playlist show up in the music app even though they are video. The only way to remove those is to manually manage your music. Good Luck. Big Sur has been good. I am old and the small icons in the menu bar drive me crazy; hard to see. This is the only problem I have had with Big Sur. I will be upgrading an external drive to Monterey and testing for a long time; before moving.

 

[Fishrrman]

What I would do is to create a cloned backup of your High Sierra MacBook onto an external drive, and then use that drive to "migrate" your data during the initial setup on the NEW m1pro MacBook.

You can do this with either CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper.
Both are FREE to download and use for 30 days, so it would cost you nothing.

Something to be aware of:
YOU CAN STILL USE iTUNES with a new MacBook.
There is a free utility called "Retroactive" that can patch iTunes to run with the new OS's.
It will also patch iPhoto, Aperture, etc.
A VERY nifty piece of software.

I use iTunes mainly for the free streaming internet radio service, which Apple removed from Music.app.
Retroactive "brings that back".

 

[chabig]

what is the best way to move both libraries to the new macOS Monterey once I get my new laptop?

The best way is to let Migration Assistant do it for you. I know you said you didn't want to do that, but you did ask what was best.

 

[stmfgmr]

The best way is to let Migration Assistant do it for you. I know you said you didn't want to do that, but you did ask what was best.

Thanks for your feedback. The main reason I don't want it is to start from a clean system and to avoid brining years of old configs, apps and stuff.
Also, once I get the laptop I'd rather start to use the second I get it, instead of having to wait for hours before 300+ GB of backup are restored in the new system.

 

[stmfgmr]

What I would do is to create a cloned backup of your High Sierra MacBook onto an external drive, and then use that drive to "migrate" your data during the initial setup on the NEW m1pro MacBook.

You can do this with either CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper.
Both are FREE to download and use for 30 days, so it would cost you nothing.

Something to be aware of:
YOU CAN STILL USE iTUNES with a new MacBook.
There is a free utility called "Retroactive" that can patch iTunes to run with the new OS's.
It will also patch iPhoto, Aperture, etc.
A VERY nifty piece of software.

I use iTunes mainly for the free streaming internet radio service, which Apple removed from Music.app.
Retroactive "brings that back".

Thanks for the tips, I didn't know about retroactive.

About cloned backup: what would be the main advantage over the regular time machine backup? I assume that if I want to import my libraries automatically, Migration Assistant can do the trick also with TM backups, or?

 

[chabig]

instead of having to wait for hours before 300+ GB of backup

You don't have to migrate from a backup. You can migrate directly from old machine to new. It's much faster. I wouldn't worry too much about old cruft, but if that is a concern, just set up the machine as you suggested. Then use Migration Assistant just for music and photos.

 

[stmfgmr]

You don't have to migrate from a backup. You can migrate directly from old machine to new. It's much faster. I wouldn't worry too much about old cruft, but if that is a concern, just set up the machine as you suggested. Then use Migration Assistant just for music and photos.

Can I use Migration Assistant also after setting up the machine? Will still overvwrite my user folder, if there is no match between the users correct?

 

[Fishrrman]

"About cloned backup: what would be the main advantage over the regular time machine backup?"

I believe the migration will actually go faster by using a cloned backup.
I don't have direct experience with which to report, because I have never, ever used time machine (only clones).
But others have reported that using the cloned backup just goes better.

 

[chabig]

Yes. You can use it after. It won't overwrite your user folder. It will only move what you tell it to move. Open the disclosure caret next to your username and select the specific items to move. I think photos and music will be there.

Transfer to a new Mac with Migration Assistant - Apple Support

Use Migration Assistant to copy your files from another computer.

support.apple.com

Of note...since you don't want to bring cruft, just your data, another way to do it is to sync your old machine to iCloud. Then set up your new machine from scratch. Install the apps you want. Then let iCloud sync the data.

 

[stmfgmr]

Of note...since you don't want to bring cruft, just your data, another way to do it is to sync your old machine to iCloud. Then set up your new machine from scratch. Install the apps you want. Then let iCloud sync the data.

iCloud can be a possibility for settings and system related data, but it's not an option for media libraries giving their size.

 

[jimimac71]

I just purchased an iPad and it is frustrating that without iTunes, I cannot put music files on the iPad.
It is SO EASY with Android. My 2007 iMac is too old to be useful but I have Windows 10 on a Dell PC.
I'm interested in a new Mac mini sometime between now and when my old 2014 Dell looses support from MS.
Can't install Windows 11.
I want to use iTunes for CD transcoding. You remember CDs, right? I have 300+.
On the subject of photos, I had to stand on my head to get my Amazon Photos library to iPad Photos.
Again, easy on Android. Had to use my Windows PC and iCloud to copy all my photos to the iPad.
I don't understand why iTunes was removed from Mac OS.
I also don't understand why files are such an issue with iPad OS.
EDIT: Is it possible to use something like Parallels and install an old Mac OS?