not sure about some things with migration assistant/time machine

[washburn]

I have on older Mac that is running high Sierra that I need to transfer files to the new machine running big Sur..

If I use migration assistant, will the files that are moved to the new machine still be there on the old? also will it copy my iTunes back ups?

I also have a coupe of user accounts on the old machine, if I do a time machine backup will it back up all the users and the whole hard drive or just the user account where you are doing the backup from?

 

[Fishrrman]

How far along are you with the NEW Mac?
Did you already set it up, with a new account (perhaps using the same name/password as you used on the older Mac)?

A "full migration" from old to new is best done the very first thing after you take the new Mac out of the box and put it on the table.

Doing it later on can introduce a number of issues.

You need to be aware that you probably don't want to end up with multiple user accounts (of the same name) on the new Mac.

I believe migration assistant (when it finds a new account with the same name as an older one) may ask you if you wish to replace the newer account with the older one. Could cause problems if you're already "committed" to the new one.

Do you want ALL of the user accounts (old and new) to exist on the new Mac?

Or... do you just want to bring some of the data files over?

 

[washburn]

How far along are you with the NEW Mac?
Did you already set it up, with a new account (perhaps using the same name/password as you used on the older Mac)?

A "full migration" from old to new is best done the very first thing after you take the new Mac out of the box and put it on the table.

Doing it later on can introduce a number of issues.

You need to be aware that you probably don't want to end up with multiple user accounts (of the same name) on the new Mac.

I believe migration assistant (when it finds a new account with the same name as an older one) may ask you if you wish to replace the newer account with the older one. Could cause problems if you're already "committed" to the new one.

Do you want ALL of the user accounts (old and new) to exist on the new Mac?

Or... do you just want to bring some of the data files over?

its still new like 1 week and nothing really on it just did web browsing, I set it up with the same name as old machine, I skipped the migration during setup

I only want my user account, but I also want to back up another users data but not as a user on the new machine, just their photos and videos to an external drive eventually so do I have to login as that user on the old and do time machine back up from there?

what about iTunes back ups how will they be saved during migration or time machine?

thanks