Transfer user to a new iMac

[halofan5691]

Question. Later this year I am getting my wife a new iMac. Her user files is copied to the Time Machine. When it comes time, the latest snapshot will be made, and I will be deleting her user account off of my iMac. When that happens, iCloud on her iPhone currently shows my iMac under her iCloud devices should disappear. I have macOS Sonoma. Also I think I would have to change her to administrator, current she is a standard user before I make that last snapshot before transfer. I want to make sure it is done correctly. Thanks in advance.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

Migration assistant (app) is your friend for all of these wants. Just use it and it should do all you want. For those objectives, it should "just work."

But don't delete her user account from yours until it is successful. In other words, make that final TN snapshot but keep her account on yours until it is available on the new iMac and she is confident that all has made the move.

Temporarily making her administrator should be fine in support of the migration.

Since you are intending to delete her user account after the transfer, perhaps one more consideration would be to get one more blank drive for Time Machine, backup all to it, then disconnect it as one more complete backup of that final snapshot. Then set it aside for a while in case there is some point where she notices something important is missing from the new iMac.

That's unlikely... but if you delete her account on your Mac and then your Macs TM drive is given enough time to update, eventually her files on it are overwritten. If you make one more TM backup drive and set it aside so it is no longer being used for TM, it will preserve how things were in that very last snapshot before the migration. If something seems to be missing months later, you could use it to search for whatever is missing.

Alternatively, you could do a final snapshot using Carbon Copy Cloner or Super Duper to this other drive for basically the same opportunity to find something that she decides is missing months later.

In either case, maybe $100 for a 5TB external will offer great peace of mind for this scenario.

 

[halofan5691]

Migration assistant (app) is your friend for all of these wants. Just use it and it should do all you want. For those objectives, it should "just work."

But don't delete her user account from yours until it is successful. In other words, make that final TN snapshot but keep her account on yours until it is available on the new iMac and she is confident that all has made the move.

Temporarily making her administrator should be fine in support of the migration.

Since you are intending to delete her user account after the transfer, perhaps one more consideration would be to get one more blank drive for Time Machine, backup all to it, then disconnect it as one more complete backup of that final snapshot. Then set it aside for a while in case there is some point where she notices something important is missing from the new iMac.

That's unlikely... but if you delete her account on your Mac and then your Macs TM drive is given enough time to update, eventually her files on it are overwritten. If you make one more TM backup drive and set it aside so it is no longer being used for TM, it will preserve how things were in that very last snapshot before the migration. If something seems to be missing months later, you could use it to search for whatever is missing.

Alternatively, you could do a final snapshot using Carbon Copy Cloner or Super Duper to this other drive for basically the same opportunity to find something that she decides is missing months later.

In either case, maybe $100 for a 5TB external will offer great peace of mind for this scenario.

I have a backup on CCC as a second backup. Much quicker than Time Machine. The question I have is on her iPhone's device listing under iCloud devices lists as mine right now, will it change once I have her set up on the new iMac and everything is working fine or will both iMacs will be there, once I delete her user off mine, it will disappear?

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

I'm generally anti-cloud, so others should chime in to give you a more confident answer. But based on what I think you are asking, when she logs OUT of iCloud on your Mac, that Mac in her iPhone's device list should disappear. For example, if she came here and logged onto iCloud on my Mac, my Mac would then be in her list.

I'm not sure it will matter if you delete her user account from your Mac if she doesn't first log out of iCloud on your Mac. Actually, I don't know what happens in that scenario.

When her new Mac is being set up, it will ask her to login with AppleID which will then associate the new one with her iCloud files. After she does that, she can log out of iCloud on your Mac.

After Migration Assistant moves all of her stuff to the new iMac, you can delete her account with little worry since you have some "final snapshot" backups just in case. I suggest sitting on those for at least a few months.

Someone else with more iCloud experience should confirm the above. I'm answering on limited use/limited knowledge of iCloud in this kind of scenario.

 

[halofan5691]

I'm generally anti-cloud, so others should chime in to give you a more confident answer. But based on what I think you are asking, when she logs OUT of iCloud on your Mac, that Mac in her iPhone's device list should disappear. For example, if she came here and logged onto iCloud on my Mac, my Mac would then be in her list.

I'm not sure it will matter if you delete her user account from your Mac if she doesn't first log out of iCloud on your Mac. Actually, I don't know what happens in that scenario.

When her new Mac is being set up, it will ask her to login with AppleID which will then associate the new one with her iCloud files. After she does that, she can log out of iCloud on your Mac.

After Migration Assistant moves all of her stuff to the new iMac, you can delete her account with little worry since you have some "final snapshot" backups just in case. I suggest sitting on those for at least a few months.

Someone else with more iCloud experience should confirm the above. I'm answering on limited use/limited knowledge of iCloud in this kind of scenario.

In iCloud, I guess what I am asking is when you look on her iPhone, it currently has my iMac, it says remove account. Would that change to her iMac, after she is logged in to the new iMac?

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

Again, I'm not expert enough to know for sure. My guess is that she needs to log out of iCloud in the user account on your iMac... then log in on her new Mac. When she does that, my GUESS is that it will no longer show your iMac there, but hers.

Best guess. Someone else with this knowledge should chime in with better info.