Migrate data from an old Mac to a new Mac

We recommend the use of Apple Migration Assistant to transfer your account and data from your old Mac. This usually works reliably. However occasionally it fails so we also provide instructions on migrating a home directory manually using an rsync procedure.

Apple Migration Assistant transfer procedure

Apple Migration Assistant is preinstalled on all Macs and can be used to import your old account from your old Mac directly using a point-to-point network transfer or it can import from your Apple Time Machine backup from an external USB drive. You do not require any special cables, you may use Wi-Fi, although transfer may be faster by Thunderbolt cable. If both Macs have a Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) port you can use the usb-c cable from your MacBook charger but data-transfer speed is limited to 480Mbps (USB 2.0). Transfer will be much quicker if using a Apple Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) cable with the Thunderbolt logo on the sleeve of each connector and can transfer up at up to 10 Gbps on most Macs manufactured in the last few years.If using Wi-FI keep both computers near each other throughout the migration process.

To launch, open Apple Finder and select 'Migration Assistant' from the 'Utilities' group.

When prompted we strongly recommend you only migrate your account and not applications from your old Mac. Install the latest versions of applications on your new Mac. This is particularly important when you are moving from an Intel Mac to a new Mac with Apple Silicon M series CPU as native Apple Silicon complied apps are likely to offer better performance. Apps compiled for Intel CPU may run but will be running in Intel emulation mode which may be slower. If your new Mac is enrolled in WIN's Orchard Mac management suite apps can be installed simply by visiting the Orchard software centre. Large transfers using Wi-Fi may need hours to complete, and may seem to pause occasionally. You may want to start in the evening and allow migration to complete overnight. The procedure is detailed further on Apple's support site.

Manual rsync user transfer procedure

If you are replacing your Mac you will need to consider how to transfer your data content. You could start afresh and create a brand new account on your new Mac or migrate your existing account from your old Mac. If most of your work is stored in Nexus OneDrive Cloud or backed up to CrashPlan (Code42) then you may find it easy to restore your work into a fresh new account on your your new Mac and may find you don't need to migrate your existing account. However if you have lots of data on the old Mac or mail and databases and custom settings that require migration you should transfer your existing account. We would usually recommend Apple Migration Assistant to transfer as this is the easiest method. However, if for any reason Migration Assistant is not working for you it should also be possible to transfer the account across manually using the rsync from the command line. The account can be copied across directly from the old Mac or it can be transferred via an external hard drive.

PRELIMINARY TASK (CREATE ACCOUNT ON NEW MAC)

Step 1 (Enable remote login on old Mac)

Follow the instructions at Allow a remote computer to access your Mac to enable ssh login on old laptop. Required for rsync. Remember to switch this off at the end of this procedure.

Step 2 (Direct network rsync transfer) 1. Ensure both Macs are on the same network and can contact each other 2. Ensure old Mac is at the login prompt without any user being logged in. 3. Login with ladmin account on new Mac and open a Terminal on the new Mac and switch to root using 'sudo su - ' . 4. Test login to old Mac using ssh user@oldmac . Accept the ssh key fingerprint and login. This needs to be done once for rsync to work. Logout from old mac by typing exit 5. Begin rsync transfer. As an example for a user with username unit1234 one would use rsync -avHE -e 'ssh -c blowfish' root@old.unit.ox.ac.uk:/Users/unit1234 /Users (please check the output for errors and repeat again until all errors are resolved).

NETWORK RSYNC ACCOUNT MIGRATION

Step 3 (Disable remote login on old Mac)

Reverse the steps you performed previously folloOxCINg https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/mac-help/mchlp1066/mac to disable ssh login on old laptop. Leaving remote login enabled could be a security risk.

EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE RSYNC ACCOUNT MIGRATION

You will need an external drive that has sufficient capacity and it will need to be formatted for Apple File System (APFS). Use the following page for guidance if you need to format the drive. Take care and make sure your format the correct drive! Erase and reformat a storage device in Disk Utility on Mac

Step 1 (Create backup on old Mac)

To create backup of home directory from old Mac connect the external drive to old Mac and create a directory 'Migration' and create an rsync backup from the terminal whilst logged in with a different account to the target account that has admin rights.

Open a Terminal on the old Mac and switch to root using 'sudo su - ' .

Here is an example enter command that presumes the external drive is mounted under '/volumes/My Passport for Mac' and we want to get the account unit1234 .

rsync -avHE /Users/user1234 /Volumes/My Passport for Mac/Migration/

Step 2 (Restore backup to new Mac)

Connect external drive to new Mac.

Login with ladmin account on new Mac and open a Terminal on the new Mac and switch to root using 'sudo su - ' . Run rsync with command below. It may take several hours

rsync -avHE /Volumes/My Passport for Mac/Migration/user1234/* /Users/user1234

When rsync completes check permissions are correct.

chown -vR user1234 /Users/user1234

Restart Mac and test login.