Transfering to new MBP with Time Machine

[rcgregory]

I'm awaiting delivery of a new MacBook Pro and will need to transfer everything from my old MBP (M1). Current machine is operating Big Sur.

For my past several updgrades, I've used Migration Assistant, but I'm thinking of using Time Machine this time. (Feels like a few gremlins have followed me with past transfers)

My current TM backup includes mainly data files and excludes the following to save space:

I think I should add /Applications to the backup? Do I need to add any of the other excluded folders too?

Any other tis on a smooth transfer process are welcome!

 

[stridemat]

I’ve only personally used migration assistant. This seems to be the way Apple suggest you transfer to a new Mac.

 

[NoBoMac]

Last migration, I used TimeMachine. No issues.

I'd add Library and Applications to the backup, to bring over user installed programs and configuration settings (aka user-ville) so that there are less potential issues with licenses, preferences, etc. Less resetting things after up and running.

 

[joeblough]

dumb question about this topic: i have a huge homedir on a separate disk. i just got a mac studio and wanted to use time machine to transfer my home directory to a new external disk on the mac studio. i don't want to use migration assistant since i'm not sure it can target an external disk for the home directory restore, and also i've been carrying forward the current system directories for like 10 years now. i want to start over "gremlin-free" as the OP does.

can time machine do an "incremental restore"? it took days to make the backup, and it's going to take days to restore the backup. in the meantime i will have created new files on my old machine. is there a way to get time machine to restore the difference to the new machine automatically?

 

[joeblough]

i took a look inside the time machine backupdb and i guess even the incremental backups contain the rest of the backup - in other words the finder sees the whole backup as plain files. i think long ago the time machine backups used to be weird databases but maybe nowadays they are more sophisticated and just appear as regular files to the filder?

i think this means i can use rsync, or maybe carbon copy cloner, to restore the backup, then do one more incremental backup on the old machine and then use CCC again (pointing it at the new backup as a source) to find and copy the changed files to the new disk. i think... i'm trying this now.

 

[joeblough]

this does appear to work; i did another backup after restoring the first backup to the new machine's external disk and now CCC is only copying the delta between the old backup and the new backup. so now i'll shut down all my applications and do one more backup, then restore, and then resume from the new machine.

 

[joeblough]

ha, i think this actually doesn't work, but might be salvagable. because the files were copied from a time machine backup, they are somehow immutable. that's sort of a problem

looks like i have to use tmutil restore to make this work; no idea if restoring another backup would result in an incremental restore but i don't think so; tmutil restore complained when the target directory already existed.

 

[jav6454]

Time Machine will work fine