Setting up new M1from old Intel

[ajo]

Im going to set up a new M1 MacBook Air for my dad. His previous machine was a 2011 MacBook Pro. I’m not keen on using migration as its an old machine, a bit of a mess probably and so starting fresh would be nice.

What if anything do I need to manually copy across, and how? - Am I right that things like Photos, Document and Desktop will self populate because of iCloud. Are there any library files that I should copy, will I lose anything from Photos that he might use (haven’t checked) like albums, faces etc… or can I copy across the whole Photos file?

How about mail, easier just to set that up fresh right?

Keychain is a bit of a mess and could do with cleaning up so I dont mind too much about that, some will be on iCloud too I think?

Any advice will be great, just want to be sure before I start.

Thanks

 

[Bodhitree]

I went through something similar moving things from my old MacBook Air 2011 (running High Sierra) to my new 24” M1 iMac (running Big Sur at the time). Here’s a few notes from what I went through, you’re mostly right:

Pages, Numbers and Keynote store files in iCloud by default, so if he uses them that should just work. GarageBand does this too, as does Notes.

Photo’s you can just grab the photo’s archive. For Music it is more complicated, you need to grab his mp3 collection and the library file, then load Music from the old library file, it will create an upgraded one and then you can link all the music files back in. For the TV app there may also be a media collection.

Mail it depends on what kind of mail account he used. I use gmail, it’s all in the cloud and came across automatically, but I am not sure if any of the other account types rely on local storage.

Keychain is almost entirely iCloud, so if you want to clean it up it will have to be done by hand. It’s only the computers user account password which is local, and which unlocks Keychain access.

I’m pretty sure that your Documents folder and Desktop don’t sync via iCloud, they didn’t for me, so that is a copy-by-hand job.

 

[ajo]

I went through something similar moving things from my old MacBook Air 2011 (running High Sierra) to my new 24” M1 iMac (running Big Sur at the time). Here’s a few notes from what I went through, you’re mostly right:

Pages, Numbers and Keynote store files in iCloud by default, so if he uses them that should just work. GarageBand does this too, as does Notes.

Photo’s you can just grab the photo’s archive. For Music it is more complicated, you need to grab his mp3 collection and the library file, then load Music from the old library file, it will create an upgraded one and then you can link all the music files back in. For the TV app there may also be a media collection.

Mail it depends on what kind of mail account he used. I use gmail, it’s all in the cloud and came across automatically, but I am not sure if any of the other account types rely on local storage.

Keychain is almost entirely iCloud, so if you want to clean it up it will have to be done by hand. It’s only the computers user account password which is local, and which unlocks Keychain access.

I’m pretty sure that your Documents folder and Desktop don’t sync via iCloud, they didn’t for me, so that is a copy-by-hand job.

Thanks for your quick reply.

Its mostly pages really. No need for GarageBand. Where is the Photos archive located - Pictures/Photo Library Folder and just copy that in the correct location? I don't think music will be too much of a problem, not a lot in there. Mail is just gmail so thats good. Keychain I will look to clean up what I can.

 

[russell_314]

When I went from my Intel Mac mini to my M1 iMac I just started off new without any migration. Of course I was using iCloud for documents so I didn't need to move them. Photos by default will be in iCloud but don't assume this or at least not before you wipe the old machine. It can be manually turned off or maybe he didn't purchase enough iCloud storage.

You can go on a web browser and see what's in iCloud. That's the best way to verify it. Same with photos.

Keychain will also save to iCloud by default

 

[Bodhitree]

Thanks for your quick reply.

Its mostly pages really. No need for GarageBand. Where is the Photos archive located - Pictures/Photo Library Folder and just copy that in the correct location? I don't think music will be too much of a problem, not a lot in there. Mail is just gmail so thats good. Keychain I will look to clean up what I can.

No problem. I think its just a .photoslibrary file in Pictures, but that may have gotten converted somewhere along the way, I remember copying a 20 GB file and now it only seems to be 7 GB. I did some cleaning out of duplicates as well though.

 

[satcomer]

Tell you dad their are two ways to get software that is either Unversal (meaning it will run on Intel and M1+ machines and pure Silicon that native to M1+ Macs! Instead of paying for Microsoft then get the donation ware LibreOffice[/url],it reads/writes MS Office docs thought history!