Upgrading to a New Mac

While perusing the Small Dog K&B archives I came across this article in which Don was wishing for a nice, simple and easy upgrading utility so that one could easily move their old files and applications to their new Mac. Here’s a a small excerpt from the article:

How do you do it? I know there is an easier way. I envision an “upgrade” utility that does it all for you. You tell it what you want to move and it will make sure all the necessary parts are moved, too. I like installing a fresh Mac OS X, but I have to say that it is a laborious process now with all the updates, etc. Got any ideas?

Do note that article was written before Jaguar and now it’s been 5 years or so since Jaguar came out.

Well…..a few years later and towards the end of the life of Jaguar development (10.2.7) an application called Migration Assistant was born. This application does exactly what Don wanted.

If you’re not familiar with Migration Assistant it runs when you first start up your new Mac, though you do have the option to skip over it. It sure makes more from old Mac to new Mac much easier! You can transfer your old account home folder, your applications and your systems settings! It works with 10.1 and up.

Should you choose to skip the initial run of the Migration Assistant you can always run it at a later time by opening the application which is found in Applications >> Utilities.

I am so impressed with all of Apple’s easy-to-use innovative tools!