I am prepping a 2017 13” MacBook Pro for my mom. I have created an account, installed the software she needs as well as a VM for her accounting software. I thought I could merge files from her time machine backup from her old MacBook Air, and I can but it wants to make a new user account, not use the user account I have created. Is there a way to merge from Timemachine with the user account created and setup already?
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Time machine merge to new computer account
- Thread starter wonderings
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
What do you need from the old account? If it's just data files, photos, etc. you can mount the Time Machine drive on the MBP and copy the files from the Backups/Latest folder, I think...
Yeah I could do that, was just thinking it could be easy with the time machine backup as I could just select everything I wanted and let it do its thing, that is how I thought it would work.
You can use migration assistant to replace the user account you made with the user account of your mother's time machine backup (or choose to keep the one you made). Just choose the option "recover from time machine backup" and her personal files and data are transferred. You'll be asked to keep the current user account or use the one of the backup.
Already installed apps and stuff are kept in place and therefore merged with the files from your mother's backup.
Last edited:
Delete the NEW user account you created for her.
Then, use migration assistant to migrate the old user account, settings and data from her time machine backup.
Aside:
This would be much easier with a cloned backup (from CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper). With those, you can mount the backup on the desktop, set permissions on it to be ignored, and just copy whatever you wish to the new account.
Then, use migration assistant to migrate the old user account, settings and data from her time machine backup.
Aside:
This would be much easier with a cloned backup (from CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper). With those, you can mount the backup on the desktop, set permissions on it to be ignored, and just copy whatever you wish to the new account.
I am just going to do it manually. There is not a whole lot and would rather not go through reinstalling app and VM again. Just thought it would be an easy task to merge into an existing created account, did not know it would have to make its own account to restore to.