Okayā¦ I am driving home from the Apple Store this afternoon. The repeating N key on my wifeās 2016 MBA was a $500 repair, so instead I opted to spend $1K on a new, M1 MBA.
Both the old and the new computer are in the back seat, and Iām wondering how I want to move over the data. I get a PocketCasts notification on my iPhone that the new episode of Mac Power Users is available. āMac Migration & Settings.ā While Iām wondering how Iām going to migrate data between these two Macs.
SPOOKY!!!
We have all had the experience where we talk about something and then get a Facebook or instragram ad, but this is a whole other level!!
Just finished listening and am using migration assistant now. Guys, thanks for pre-cogāing my problem and solution!
Wow! Now thatās a new level of customer service!
I didnāt get nearly that kind of attention. They just gave me the advice not to have your Time Machine velcroād to the back of your Mac ālike some people we knowā if I drop my Mac into Lake Tahoe ā which appears to be about 2800 miles away, so I think itās unlikely to happen, butā¦
A) I think Stephen is still just jealous of my ingenuity.
(Narrator: āWhat Stephen feels is more accurately described as being āhorrified at your offense against all that is good and holyā.ā
B) I didnāt use Velcro (I think itās actually @MacSparky who does/did that!) and it wasnāt my Time Machine drive. It was a 2 TB SSD so that I could have my entire Dropbox stored locally and didnāt have to rely on āSmart Syncā. What I should really do is just clean out my Dropbox so it fits on my internal drive.
C) Since I now use my M1 Mac mini as my primary Mac, I donāt do that any moreā¦ I mean, I suppose I could tape a couple of those T-5/T-7 SSDs to my Mac mini.
RE: Applications to install on a new computer or after a nuke and pave.
I donāt use Migration Assistant. All my important stuff is in the cloud or on an external SSD and nothing is in my computer except apps and stuff that can be obtained from iCloud, Dropbox, pCloud, etc.
I always work from a list apps that were in my āoldā computer. Hereās how:
- Go to the Applications folder and do a Cmd-A, Cmd-C.
Note: If youāre using something like Setapp, you can either āfavoriteā all the installed apps in Setapp or redo Step 1 for the Setapp folder in Application. - Open a plain text editor. Text Edit works fine but remember to set the format as Plain Text (in the Format Menu).
At this point, you could print it out. However, I prefer to copy this text into a word processor and create columnsā¦just more pleasing to my eyes.
I then print it out as a reference. I cross out all the Apple system-installed apps (if I feel really energetic, Iāll do this by deleting them in the word processor). Then use a red highlighter to highlight the must-have-immediately apps (1Password is first so I can get to the passwords and license numbers for all the apps Iāll be installing), followed by a yellow to highlight the ones I know I want but can wait. Then, for all the others, I take the @MacSparky philosophyā¦earn your way back into my computer. Then I keep the list handy because I always get to a point where I think, āI had an app that would do xxxxx. What was it?ā Usually, just looking down the list will jog my memory.
Iāve had a couple of computers where Iād do a nuke and pave about every month due to this problem or that problem. Iāve even done it when I wanted to roll back to Big Sur on my M1 MacBook Air when I had gone to the Monterey public beta.
You can usually get back to a fully functional computer within a few hours, then bits and pieces of time for a few days while you pick up the apps you realize you need.
Tony
Iāve done nuke&pave more than most people probably should. I used to do it for each major version of macOS (i.e. Catalina to Big Sur).
The biggest problem is apps purchased from Paddle which often have activation limits. I now keep a list in Notes of which apps need to be ādeactivatedā.
Then there are all of the little settings.
Like Hazel rules.
Like BBEditās preferences.
Like my default font in Pages.
Honestly, Iāve gotten to the point where I donāt install a lot of apps that I donāt actually use, so not bringing them over was just a hassle.
Eventually I realized that I was just giving myself 1,000 paper cuts by doing this.
I did do clean installs for Intel-to-M1 but Iām not even sure that was necessary, but it did seem like a good time to do it.
However, most people donāt get new hardware as often as new versions of macOS come out, so, if you feel better doing a ānuke&paveā obviously itās up to you, but I donāt think thereās much need to do it any more.
I think itās likely I may not go the nuke and pave route in the future, barring any catastrophic
problemsā¦Iāll also avoid public betas on my daily machine! 
I feel comfortable enough with the way Big Sur is working on the M1, so Iāll probably just do an upgrade when Monterey releases or a migration if I ever get a new machine (which is highly unlikely).
That said, I guess I donāt have a lot of ālittle settings.ā Itās never been much of a bother getting everything tweaked. Canāt you save settings files on apps like Hazel or Pages?
Tony
Hey @macsparky! Iām one of the few of them who actually uses the announcement time feature in the clock pane. Since Iām a VoiceOver (blind) user, I appreciate this feature a lot. Lets me explain.
As a sighted person, you can easily glance on the corner of your menubar and check what time it is. For us, who are blind, this feature help us be aware how fast time goes away. It was actually @RosemaryOrchard who wrote a great piece about announce time on TSS and thereafter, I opened system preferences and turned on hourly announcement of time.
In addition to that, I also have an AppleScript which announces current time. Triggered by a keyboard shortcut.
So yeah, David, you can look at this as accessibility/automation feature for them who need this.
While I wrote this answer, it came to my mind that I have different announce AppleScripts in different areas e.g., word count, name of current playing song etc. Possibly, I will turn this topic into a blog post. Thank you for inspiration, David!
Iāve literally set up or rebuilt hundreds of Macs so I was very interested in hearing what David and Stephen had to say. IMO, this was one of the most complete discussions on the subject that Iāve ever listened to or read. Great episode!
When it comes to settings my rule is āChange all All Apple Defaultsā and for those discussed I almost always agreed with one host or the other. For the record I use: Tap to click, Mission Control in the lower right corner and NO NATURAL SCROLLING. And I add the Library to my Sidebar.
I think the Migration Assistant is a very useful app, but I always do clean installs. This normally takes 1-2 hours plus whatever time is needed to transfer files. My preferred settings are burned into my memory from all the setups, etc Iāve done and I keep a folder containing the installer for my all non-App Store software. (Yes, all my users started out with my preferred settings 
)
And I always turn on FileVault before I transfer sensitive files to my Mac because it is impossible to secure wipe an SSD. This may not be necessary since Catalina but itās been my habit since Apple started using solid state drives.
Thanks for another great episode of MPU!
A couple of tips to add.
I use the CustomShortcuts app to add keyboard shortcuts to apps. Itās much more convenient than digging into System Preferences and menu items autocomplete as theyāre typed, so I donāt need to remember the exact wording.
Itās developed by Houdah Software (the same developer as HoudahSpot) and is FREE. Keyboard shortcuts defined in CustomShortcuts are visible in System Preferences (and vice versa), so I could uninstall CustomShortcuts without losing any keyboard shortcuts.
Secondly, in the General panel of Systems Preference thereās a āPrefer tabsā setting thatās set to āfull screenā by default. I opted to set this to āalwaysā to cut down on window clutter.
For example, if Iām composing an email and Mail and use āN to create another draft, a new tab will be added to the existing compose email window instead of a new window being created. If I like, I can easily move this new tab into its own window by choosing Window > Move Tab to New Window. For convenience, Iāve assigned a global shortcut of āāW to this menu command.
This behaviour takes a little getting used to, but having used it for several years I canāt see ever going back to the default setting.
i always go for a fresh install ~ i donāt have a new mac that often so would rather just take the opportunity to start again, with no (potential) hang overs from prior installs
I donāt recall which app it was, but I did find that enabling āUse keyboard navigation to move focus between controlsā messed up the behavior of one of my other apps. So, just FYI if you enable this and find something doesnāt work like it is supposed to elsewhere in your system, this may be the culprit. Sad, because I would prefer to leave this on.
@RDK Thanks for this. Iām adding it to our feedback outline. I you do make that post, please send me an email.
Two small things:
A) Unlock with Apple Watch does not only work, when I am on my desk. It also works when my kids are poking on my keyboard and I am going by the the room in the hallway.
B) I canāt live without the 3-finger-drag, which can be found in the accessibility menu. It allows to āgrabā windows, making me feel like I can touch the sky, eh, screen.
But I guess, thatās more for those in the tap-to-click camp.
Edit: I am totally in the fresh install camp, even just for new major os version. I once started a script for the non-negotiable settings, but setting settings programmatically is quite a pain.
That would be a very nice automators episode!
Itās sad that three finger drag isnāt a default setting, and is hidden away in an Accessibility menu. I use it all the time but donāt use tap-to-click 
Ah, so itās really sad, that itās hidden away.
I believe that there was a time, where the three finger tap actually was in the trackpad settings ā¦ old days ā¦ where everything was better
Guys, thanks for the tip on stopping Spaces being rearranged while Iām not looking. I have a further bugbear, however. Is there any way of ensuring that app windows go to the correct Space after a restart? Most seem to just open up in the first Space and have to be manually relocated.
If you right-click on the appās dock icon, then click Options, youāll see options to assign the app to a desktop, or all desktops.
Thanks, but I frequently have multiple windows for the same applications on different desktops - Safari and Excel, for example.
It looks like Moom might do what you want.
And could be used in conjunction with Bunch to launch and set up multiple applications (if thatās something you need too).
Upgrade versus Migrating
Sometimes it scares me a little bit when @Stephen and David @MacSparky have a podcast that directly the addresses something that Iām wrestling with currently.
On one hand how timely and on the other, where were they 8 mos ago when I was making bad decisions.
What follows is a migrating horror story, the faint of heart should turn away.
When I got my new M1 Mac mini I was excited to do a clean install until I realized all the settings, Apps, licenses that I would have to bring over. I then discovered migration assistant.
My Late Oct 2012 MacBook Pro had been acting a bit flaky but I naĆÆvely thought that I could migrate the applications and settings to the new machine.
As it turns out I migrated the problems along with the application and settings.
About 50% of the time when I leave my M1 running over night I come back to machine that is crashed.
Clean my Mac will regularly give me warnings that Iām running out of ram while the activity monitor shows but the system is idling with plenty of memory available.
When Apple support suggested that I totally rebuild my machine I jokingly said there goes 2 days of my life put a reality itās probably closer to Davidās estimate of 2 weeks.
I believe my lesson learned is that unless your machine is running perfectly you should not do migration.
Thatās said, if youāre going to do a clean reinstall what can you do to make it easier.
My plan, if my checkbook can handle it, is to buy one of the new M1x Mac Minis and start from scratch while I still have the old machine to reference and then sell the old machine.
Thatās it does anybody have any ideas or tricks to make it less painful?
In talking with Apple support about keyboard settings and moving them to the new she showed me how are you can just do at Ctrl A select all of the keyboard settings and then drag them to your desktop as plists and then drag them over to the new machine.
Other than keyboard settings Iām not sure what else you could drag and drop to save system preferences.
I was thinking about building a spreadsheet the listing all of the applications as well as their homepage and Serial Numbers/License.
I donāt suppose thereās anyway to extract all of those serial numbers in a way that would allow you to move them to another machine?
There doesnāt seem to be standards amongst developers by which you can transfer the license from one machine to another. I know some you have to release prior to uninstalling to make a license available again.
What really scares me is the possibility of finding out that it wasnāt the migration that brought the problems across but just some strange combination of applications that are causing my unstable system. I know that I should slowly install the apps making sure the system is stable on the way but itās just so frustrating when you want to do something and your favorite tool isnāt there.
The purpose of this post to solicit any tips and tricks to make reinstalling from one machine to another less painful.
My goal is to have a stable machine, one I donāt constantly have to mess with. I need to treat it as a production machine, move to the latest OS updates after they are determined to be stable and leave the testing of the latest and greatest apps to you youngsters.
Iāve become aware of just how much time Iām spending troubleshooting and maintaining the computers I have and some days it feels like I am a lone knight fighting three dragons (M1 Mini, Notebook, and PC) and often losing.
Along those lines the one thing I really do appreciate is that the iPad tends to be quite solid. That is with the exception of the last update which seems to have really slowed my 2018 iPad down. Iām sure thatās going to be fun to troubleshoot.
I am going to have to do it to two machines as my notebook will no longer be supported. I may just do a clean install of Big Sur and use my late 2012 MacBook Pro as a Remote Desktop in the living room.
But I digress, does anybody have any suggestions to help make the move from one machine to another less painful? Any white papers or writeups?