migrationassistant
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Apple's Windows migration tool can transfer more info in Mojave
Windows users looking for an easier time of switching to the Mac are in luck. According to a report at 9to5Mac, Apple's latest operating system, macOS 10.14 Mojave, has a new Windows Migration Assistant. Originally spotted by a Twitter user, the new assistant will apparently bring over much more data than ever before, including user accounts, documents, email, contacts and calendar information.
To migrate or not to migrate: that is the upgrade question
Face it, a simple migration saves you lots of work. Apple's Migration Assistant transfers information when you set up your new Mac, letting you retain all your preferences and passwords on your new system. You pick up one one machine where you left off on another. So why do so many of us here at TUAW manually set up our computers? It's all about cruft, that stuff that builds up over time. Cruft includes apps you no longer use, preferences you don't really remember setting, bits and pieces scattered around your system that accumulate with use. We love unboxing, smelling that captured Shenzhen air, and setting up from scratch instead of bringing all our old mistakes and history along with us. And quite a number of us do this whenever we upgrade. Sure, it's a much harder process. I have a migration log that I use each time I set up a Mac. It takes at least a half day of work, waiting for applications to transfer, re-entering serial numbers, adjusting the way my scrollbars work ("Show scrollbars: always, Mouse > Scroll direction, natural: disable), and tweaking my hosts file (someonewhocares.org). And that's just a taste of the customization I do. Manually setting up your system transforms an automatic act into a deliberate one. It provides an excellent opportunity to question historical choices and evaluate how you want your system to behave. It's a natural break point, where you can reconsider how you've designed key system elements and where you can try out new ones fresh. It gives you a sense that your new computer really is new, complete with "new car" smell. You wouldn't want to move over all the crumb-infested juicebox-stained seats from your old minivan to your new Porsche, so why would you want to do the same for your Mac? Agreed, that's not a fair metaphor -- but it gives a sense of the ownership some of us want to feel over our new system. There's nothing there that we didn't deliberately put there. Sure, that sense of control quickly fades away as we start building up caches and attachment folders, temp files and so forth. But at least for a while, our system is fresh. And that's something worth considering the next time you upgrade. What about you? Are you a migrator or a manual installer? Place a vote in this poll and then join in the comments with your thoughts. %Poll-78896%
Apple posts OS X 10.8.1 update, mends your Mountain Lion
There's a special moment in every operating system's life when it loses its innocent .0 status and grows up. It's OS X Mountain Lion's turn to mature, as Apple has just pushed out the 10.8.1 update for early adopters. Most of the fixes are for issues that plague specific use cases, such as audio output from a Thunderbolt Display or crashes in Migration Assistant. There are a few remedies that a wider audience might appreciate -- a fix for iMessages that don't send and an improvement to Exchange compatibility in Mail, for example. We don't yet know of any surprises lurking underneath, but it can't hurt to have a smoother-running Mac while we investigate.
Apple updates Migration Assistant for Leopard-to-Lion compatibility
Apple previously updated its Migration Assistant app for compatibility between Lion and Snow Leopard, and now here's the original Leopard update. The Migration Assistant Update for Mac OS X Leopard smooths out the transfer from a Leopard Mac to one running with the newest Lion OS, making sure your data, settings, and apps all make the trip over. Yes, it's not exactly groundbreaking. But if you've got a Leopard Mac sitting around and have been planning on picking up a new one complete with a Lion install, this will definitely be helpful in the transition. The update is of course free, and can be picked up from Apple's site. [via MacRumors]
Migration Assistant Update for Mac OS X Snow Leopard released
On the eve of the launch of OS X Lion, Apple has released a Migration Assistant update for Mac OS X Snow Leopard. The 714 KB update issues the following fix: This update addresses an issue with the Migration Assistant application in Mac OS X Snow Leopard that prevents transfer of your personal data, settings, and compatible applications from a Mac running Mac OS X Snow Leopard to a new Mac running Mac OS X Lion. In other words, this sounds like a critical update for anyone running Snow Leopard on their current Mac but planning on moving their data over to a new Mac with Lion as its OS.
Ask TUAW: Spring Has Sprung Edition
Hello all! Welcome to the 'Spring has Sprung' edition of Ask TUAW, your favorite question-and-answer column. Now that many of you have your iPad 2s/are in line to get them/hope to see them show up eventually, we'll be answering some questions (and not answering others, because sometimes even Ask TUAW doesn't know what's going to happen). We can never have too many questions, so if you have anything you'd like to know about your new iPad or the one you're going to buy as soon as they're back in stock, here's what you need to do: go to the comments of this post, think of all the Mac/iPad/iPhone questions that keep you awake at night and fire away. You can also email your questions directly to ask [at] tuaw.com. Ray writes with a question about data migration: I'm planning on buying the new 17-inch Macbook Pro soon, and I wonder if there's a way to transfer just my iTunes & iPhoto libraries to my new Mac without having to transfer everything else. I currently use a 2009 Aluminium Macbook (Intel Core 2 Duo) running v.10.6.6.
Ask TUAW Video Edition: Migration Assistant
Today we discuss the Mac OS X Migration Assistant. Joe asks, "What's the best way to transfer my old data on my old MacBook to my new MacBook Pro without erasing new software on the MBP like the new iLife suite?" Well Joe, you and many other TUAW readers are going to learn about the Migration Assistant. The video's on the next page, and as always you can leave questions in the comments!
Ask TUAW: Emptying the trash, migration assistant, Safari bookmarks, Mac mini server and more
Welcome back to Ask TUAW, our weekly troubleshooting Q&A column. This week we've got questions about the Trash, Migration Assistant, Safari Bookmarks, Mac mini Server, Windows and Mac file sharing and more. As always, your suggestions and questions are welcome. Questions for next week should be left in the comments. When asking a question please include which machine you're running and which version of Mac OS X (we'll assume you're running Snow Leopard on an Intel Mac if you don't specify). And now, on to the questions. CL asks: Is there any way to just delete a single item in the trash can? I only see options to empty the entire trash can? Unfortunately, as they say in computer parlance "That's a feature, not a bug." At the moment, Apple only allows you to go for an "all or nothing" approach to emptying the trash. Of course, the best solution is to only put things in the trash you want to delete. But I'm sure you already thought of that. Lamdavidortez asks: I will be upgrading from my current February 2007 Macbook Pro that is running Leopard to a new October 2009 MacBook Pro that is running Snow Leopard I plan on transferring my data via the "Migration Assistant" but being that this is the first time I perform this type of operation ... I want to make sure that I do not run into any issues. Are there any precautions I should take? My other concern is that I backup my current 2007 MBP via Time Machine to my Time Capsule. What will happen to that data once I switch over to the 2009 MBP? Will I still have access to that data? Will it be rendered useless? Migration Assistant has been around for several years now and has evolved and become better with each successive update. There was a time when I would never consider using it and did things the manual way by copying each and every thing I needed individually from an old Mac to a new one. Now, Migration Assistant is good enough and, more importantly, reliable enough to be used on its own. So, migrate away.
Ask TUAW: More migration, expanding Apple's Dictionary, syncing iPhone notes, and more
Welcome back to Ask TUAW, our weekly Mac troubleshooting Q&A column! This time we've got more questions on migrating user data when upgrading to Snow Leopard, expanding Apple's built-in Dictionary application, accessing iPhone notes without Mail.app, and more.As always, your suggestions and questions are welcome. Questions for next week should be left in the comments. When asking a question please include which machine you're running and which version of Mac OS X (we'll assume you're running Leopard on an Intel Mac if you don't specify). And now, on to the questions.
Ask TUAW: Recovering video files, moving from an old Mac to a new one, MobileMe Sync and more
Welcome back to Ask TUAW, our weekly Mac troubleshooting Q&A column. This week we've got questions about recovering video files from a corrupt SDHC card, transferring files from an old Mac to a new one, MobileMe sync, virtual machines and more. As always, your suggestions and questions are welcome. Questions for next week should be left in the comments. When asking a question please include which machine you're running and which version of Mac OS X (we'll assume you're running Leopard on an Intel Mac if you don't specify). And now, on to the questions. Matt asks: I recently shot video with a camera that records it to an SDHC card. Unfortunately, that card is now corrupted and when I try to download the video to my computer, it doesn't show up. How can I recover the video from the card? I know how you feel because this exact thing happened to me recently. We shot a bunch of great video interviews for another site I work with, and one of the SDHC cards became corrupt. Fortunately, all was not lost but recovering the video, at least for me, was a two step process. This is the method that worked for me, even though there are probably other tools available; I was under a deadline and needed to get this worked out fast so looking for the best free apps or the best deal wasn't an option. However, it did work and all the video was recovered with no loss.
Ask TUAW: Migration, syncing, backing up, and more
Welcome back to Ask TUAW, our weekly Mac troubleshooting Q&A column! This time we've got questions on migrating to a new Mac, using a Time Capsule for wireless backup, speeding up podcasts, syncing two Macs, and more. As always, your suggestions and questions are welcome. Questions for next week should be left in the comments. When asking a question please include which machine you're running and which version of Mac OS X (we'll assume you're running Leopard on an Intel Mac if you don't specify). And now, on to the questions.
Ask TUAW: AirPort Extreme bridge, iTunes smart playlists, USB drive backup, and more
Welcome back to Ask TUAW, our weekly Mac troubleshooting Q&A column! This time we've got questions on using an AirPort Extreme as a wireless to ethernet bridge, automatically backing up a USB flash drive, building smart playlists in iTunes, migrating an iTunes Library and more. As always, your suggestions and questions are welcome. Questions for next week should be left in the comments. When asking a question please include which machine you're running and which version of Mac OS X (we'll assume you're running Leopard on an Intel Mac if you don't specify). And now, on to the questions.
Migrating to a new Mac - say hello to a Mac Switcher
Well, what better way to introduce myself but to sing the praises of the almighty Mac! I'm Jason Clarke, and I'm brand new to TUAW, although I've been writing over on sister-site Download Squad for a couple of years now. I was also briefly the lead blogger for The Unofficial Microsoft Weblog, until it was rolled into Download Squad. Despite my checkered past, this post is going to be me preaching to the choir, so consider yourself warned.Today was a very happy day for me, because my MacBook Pro that I've been eagerly anticipating arrived. I've been a very happy Mac user since I received my first MacBook, about 4 months ago. Now, receiving a new primary computer for me has always been somewhat bittersweet; the excitement of the new machine is always offset by the pain of migrating from the old one. When migrating from and old to a new Windows machine, I would always plan for two days of hell, followed by two weeks of minor (and sometimes major) aggravation when some utility that I needed in that moment had yet to be installed or configured. I had heard that Macs have a migration assistant, so I wasn't quite sure what to expect. Find out what happened (as if you don't already know) after the jump.
Ask TUAW: iPhone alerts, Migration Assistant, annoying coworkers and more
Welcome to this week's edition of Ask TUAW. As you probably know from last week's column, Mat Lu, your favorite TUAW answer-man, is on vacation and this week I'm here to try and fill his very large shoes. We'll see how that goes but I feel optimistic.Remember, if you want to ask us a question here at Ask TUAW, just post it in the comments of this post and we'll try to get it answered for you next week. Or, maybe one of your fellow commenters will give you the answer before that. Ok, now that that's done, let's get to this week's questions.
