We talk a lot about how to make a Time Machine backup and how important it is, but we don’t often talk about how to restore or transfer your data using a Time Machine backup. There’s a couple of ways to get data off the Time Machine backup, the easiest of which is to transfer everything from the backup to a new Mac. Sometimes this doesn’t work though, as older machines with Hard Drives (HDDs) frequently have more space, and potentially more user content to be transferred than the new Solid State Drives (SSDs) that new new Apple notebooks ship with which means there might be an issue with space. It’s always good to check if you’re getting the right amount of storage space. There are many ways to do this, but that’s another topic altogether.
Migration Assistant is an app that you can find in the Utilities folder within your Applications folder on your Mac that will allow you to restore data from a Time Machine backup. If it’s a brand new machine (or restored to factory settings with a clean install) you’ll have three options for transferring data during the initial setup: transfer your data from a Windows PC; create a new account; or transfer your data from a Mac, Time Machine Backup or Startup Disk.
The one with Time Machine Backup in its description is the one we want. Before you start transferring everything (after you’ve clicked through a few relatively self-explanatory screens) you’ll be able to select what user accounts you want to transfer and whether or not you want to transfer the contents of the Applications folder. You get a little bit of granular control here, but not too much. It’s simple, but doesn’t give you complete and total control. If it does move a bunch of stuff that you don’t want, it’s always an option to delete it from the new machine to free up space.
In most cases I recommend just checking everything and just transferring everything. It’ll set up your new Mac more or less as closely as possible to the settings of the old one, and for most people, that’s exactly what they want.