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Restoring from old data (10,12) on a new iMac

Dear community,

I will be going to get a new iMac very soon, and I wonder how I should restore the data I have on my old Mac.

I am running on an old Late 2009 iMac with 10.12, so I don't think it will be wise to just get the new iMac, plug the Time Machine in and let it recover everything (I don't even know if it possible to go down so many OSs), and then upgrade everything again to the latest version.


The other option would be to just copy data from my home folder, but since I have three different account, how would I preserve all the settings I currently have? For instance, the accounts names, the finder preferences, the backgrounds in the various screens, the way apps open, the icons and so on? If I need to redo what I configured over time, for sure I will forget about something and it will take a lot of time.


Are there any in-between options?

Thanks a lot!

Luca

iMac, macOS 10.12

Posted on Dec 14, 2020 8:25 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Dec 14, 2020 8:32 AM

Luca, check out migration assistant. You can choose what you want to bring across from the old iMac. I would recommend a direct connection. I personally used a CCC (Carbon Copy Cloner ) clone of the drive I was migrating from on a SSD to migrate from my old computer. You can also use a Timemachine backup as well.


I hope this helps.


Paul

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3 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Dec 14, 2020 8:32 AM in response to ciclista71

Luca, check out migration assistant. You can choose what you want to bring across from the old iMac. I would recommend a direct connection. I personally used a CCC (Carbon Copy Cloner ) clone of the drive I was migrating from on a SSD to migrate from my old computer. You can also use a Timemachine backup as well.


I hope this helps.


Paul

Restoring from old data (10,12) on a new iMac

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