Migration Assistant therefore works best when: On a new Mac, they are already pre-installed in any case. Migration Assistant runs with SIP turned on, as in normal use, so cannot migrate protected parts of macOS or related files, nor anything stored on the System volume. support files in other hidden folders, except those stored on the System volume.settings and support files in /Library.all apps in /Applications and its sub-folders such as Utilities, except Apple’s apps which are stored on the System volume.complete user Home folders, including all settings in ~/Library.When to used to its full extent, Migration Assistant will migrate: Of course Migration Assistant is even more complex, as it can perform migrations from Time Machine backups and copies of the Data volume rather than a server. These are run with elevated privileges, effectively from outside any existing user account, and with all user apps closed. Migration Assistant consists of a common front-end to what are in effect two quite different apps: one which acts as a client, requesting and installing files on your new Mac, the other working as a server which delivers those files from your old Mac.

With a new Mac, the only way you can do that is to migrate after installing the update. If your new Mac has 11.4 pre-installed, then it’s better to update it to 11.6 or later, or even 12 before migrating. The advantage of migrating later, after you’ve personalised and configured your new Mac, is that it’s most likely to be most successful when performed by the latest version of the migration software. If the system you’re migrating from is another Mac, you need to run Migration Assistant on that as well.

All you have to do is connect the two Macs (or Mac and a storage device, or to be more adventurous, a Mac and a Windows system) and run Migration Assistant from the /Applications/Utilities folder. You can also perform migration at any other time. I’ll be writing separately about that next week, particularly in the context of the new M1 Pro and Max models. Among the most compelling is that most new Macs don’t come with the latest version of macOS installed, in which case it’s usually better to update macOS before performing any migration. It’s tempting to do that immediately, but there are often good reasons for leaving it until later. During that process, you’re invited to connect to your old Mac, a backup or another copy of a Data volume. Most users perform migration when they first personalise and set up their new Mac. This article looks at that process of migration: when to do it, and how.

Whichever you have to set up, one of your most important tasks is going to be migrating all your settings, documents and apps from your previous Mac.

For some it will be one of the remaining Intel models, but for most it will probably be an Apple Silicon model. In the next few weeks, many of us will be setting up our new Macs.

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