Moving to a New Mac —
Migration Assistant

A new Mac shouldn't mean leaving anything behind

There's a new Mac in a white box on the kitchen table, and somewhere behind that pleasant feeling is a small knot of worry: the photos, the letters, the tax folder, the bookmarks. Years of a life live on the old computer, and now it all has to get across. That worry is the reason plenty of perfectly good new Macs sit in their boxes for a month.

Here's the honest news. Migration Assistant is free, it already lives on every Mac, and Apple is unusually plain about what it does: it transfers documents, apps, user accounts, and settings from one Mac to another — and it doesn't delete anything on your old Mac or replace macOS on your new one. It reads; it doesn't take. It can also pull from a Time Machine backup when the old Mac is gone, or from a Windows PC if you're switching sides. The two things people actually need to know aren't technical at all: plan for hours rather than minutes, and don't get rid of the old computer until the new one has proved itself for a couple of weeks.

The golden rule: keep the old computer for two to four weeks

Everything else in this guide is recoverable. Wiping, selling, or trading in the old machine too early is not. Migration Assistant makes a copy — the original stays untouched — so let it sit in a closet and earn its keep as insurance. A forgotten file is a five-minute fix while the old computer exists, and a permanent loss after.

Which of the three routes is yours

1. From your old Mac. If it still turns on, put both machines side by side on the same table, plugged into power. They connect to each other over Wi-Fi and hand the data across directly. This is the most complete transfer.
2. From a Time Machine backup. If the old Mac is broken, dead, or already gone, the backup drive has everything — Apple says Migration Assistant can restore all your personal files from it, including your apps and everything in your user account. Plug the drive into the new Mac and go. Usually the fastest route, too.
3. From a Windows PC. Yes, really. Download the free Windows Migration Assistant from support.apple.com onto the PC, and it hands your files, contacts, calendars, mail settings, music, and bookmarks to the Mac. The current version needs macOS Sonoma 14.4 or later on the Mac and Windows 10 or later on the PC.

Do it during first-time setup if you possibly can

A brand-new Mac asks “transfer your information?” in its first ten minutes, and saying yes right there gives the tidiest possible result — your account comes across as itself, same name, same folders. If you already finished setup, you have not ruined anything: open Migration Assistant from Applications > Utilities (or System Settings > General > Transfer or Reset) and run it any time. The only extra screen is one asking whether to replace or rename an account with the same name — replacing the brand-new empty one is usually what you want.

The fifteen minutes of prep that prevent most problems

• Update macOS on both Macs. They don't have to be on the same version — they just both need to be current.
• Plug both into power. Both. A MacBook that sleeps at 3% takes the migration down with it.
• Put them near each other. Modern Macs link directly over Wi-Fi, so “same table” beats “same house.”
• Turn off antivirus, firewall, and VPN software on both until you're done. Apple names this on every migration page, and it's the most common cause of a failure.
• Check your free space. If 400 GB is in use on the old Mac and the new one holds 256 GB, the math doesn't work — untick some categories, or trim the old machine first.
• Know your passwords before moving day: the old Mac's login, your Apple Account, and your email.

How long it takes — and why it looks frozen

Apple's own wording is worth memorizing: large transfers “might need hours to complete, and might seem to pause occasionally.” That sentence is your permission slip to walk away. The time estimate on screen is a guess based on average speed so far, and ten thousand tiny files crawl where one big file flies — so the number swings wildly and sometimes sits still. Very roughly: a light user with 60 GB may finish inside an hour; a household with 300 GB of photos and video should start in the morning and plan on several hours. It's fair to suspect real trouble only if nothing has moved at all in about two hours, or you get an outright error.

Wi-Fi or a cable?

For two modern Macs, Apple's current instructions are wireless — Wi-Fi on, machines near each other. Recent Macs make their own direct link rather than routing through your router, which is why proximity helps more than signal bars. If you want the wired speed, the practical answer for most households isn't a special cable: it's backing the old Mac up to Time Machine and migrating from that drive plugged into the new Mac. Ethernet still works if you have the ports, and Apple does specifically suggest a cable or shared network for older setups (a Mac on macOS 13 or earlier receiving from a PC, for instance).

The finish list — 20 minutes after the bar fills

• Sign in to your Apple Account. System Settings, then “Sign in” at the top of the sidebar. Migration Assistant copies your files, not your identity — that sign-in is yours to type, and it lights up iCloud, Messages, FaceTime, the App Store, and Find My all at once.
• Open your email. Apple notes that mail transfers but you might need to set the account up again in your email app. A password prompt here is normal, not a loss.
• Coming from a PC? Apple says to authorize your Mac for purchases with your Apple Account before you sync or play content downloaded from Apple.
• Run Software Update, print a test page, open Photos and let it start indexing.
• Expect a slow first day or two. Spotlight is reading every file you just gave it and Photos is rebuilding thumbnails. Leave it plugged in and awake overnight — that's when it catches up.

Moving-day safety, and retiring the old machine

New-computer week is exactly when a scam works, because everything on screen is supposed to look unfamiliar. So: Apple does not put phone numbers in error messages, nobody legitimate knows you bought a Mac, and Migration Assistant never needs anyone to take remote control of your computer to “finish the transfer.” Download the Windows tool only from support.apple.com, never a sponsored search link. And when the quiet weeks have passed and nothing has turned up missing, erase the old Mac properly — System Settings > General > Transfer or Reset > Erase All Content and Settings on Macs with Apple silicon or a T2 chip running macOS Monterey 12 or later. Deleting files is not erasing a computer.

What's in the 27-page PDF

• What Migration Assistant actually is — and the sentence that calms most people down
• The 60-second version: six checkboxes that are most of the battle
• Which of the three routes is yours — old Mac, Time Machine backup, or Windows PC
• The fifteen minutes of prep that prevent nearly every failure
• Doing it at first-time setup versus later, compared honestly
• Route by route, step by step — including the security code and the category checkboxes
• What comes over from Windows and exactly where it lands on the Mac
• Wi-Fi versus a cable, and how long this really takes
• The long wait: why the estimate lies, and the rare signs of a genuine stall
• The password screen — the one place a wrong click costs you
• Signing in to your Apple Account, the twenty-minute finish list, and the slow first day
• If it fails: the troubleshooting order, the fallback that always works, moving-day scams, kitchen-table questions, a glossary, and your fill-in cheat sheet

Why I wrote this

Setting up a new Mac is one of my most common $99 visits, and the fear I meet at the kitchen table is almost never about the computer — it's about the photos. So I wrote down the map: what moves by itself, what needs a password typed afterward, and which afternoon you should simply walk away from the progress bar. I serve Portage County out of Atwater, I write these guides as printable handouts, and the 30-day follow-up exists precisely for the file somebody notices missing in week three. — Bill