How To Migrate Data To A New Drive In Macos Repair Guide

Difficulty

Very easy

Steps

Time Required

                          30 minutes - 3 hours

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How to migrate data to a new drive in macOS
7 steps

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Introduction

What you need

Step 1

              How to migrate data to a new drive in macOS

Before you begin, connect your old macOS drive or a Time Machine backup drive to your computer.
If you forgot to make a backup of your old SSD before upgrading, you can install it to an external SSD enclosure to transfer any data you need as shown in this guide, and then keep it as an external storage drive.

Before you begin, connect your old macOS drive or a Time Machine backup drive to your computer.

If you forgot to make a backup of your old SSD before upgrading, you can install it to an external SSD enclosure to transfer any data you need as shown in this guide, and then keep it as an external storage drive.

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Step 2

Power on your Mac and open the Migration Assistant application.
After the Migration Assistant window opens, do not press Continue until you are ready to begin the migration process. Pushing continue will automatically force close any open applications and log you out.

Power on your Mac and open the Migration Assistant application.

After the Migration Assistant window opens, do not press Continue until you are ready to begin the migration process. Pushing continue will automatically force close any open applications and log you out.

Step 3

After you are logged out and taken to the Migration Assistant screen, select the first option: transfer From a Mac, Time Machine backup, or startup disk.
Click Continue.

After you are logged out and taken to the Migration Assistant screen, select the first option: transfer From a Mac, Time Machine backup, or startup disk.

Click Continue.

Step 4

Migration Assistant will list any connected macOS or Time Machine drives across the top of the window.
Select the drive you want to restore from, and click Continue.

Migration Assistant will list any connected macOS or Time Machine drives across the top of the window.

Select the drive you want to restore from, and click Continue.

Step 5

If the drive you have selected is a Time Machine drive, Migration Assistant will list all the backups available from which you can transfer information.
Select the backup you’d like to transfer information from, and click Continue.

If the drive you have selected is a Time Machine drive, Migration Assistant will list all the backups available from which you can transfer information.

Select the backup you’d like to transfer information from, and click Continue.

Step 6

Select all the items you’d like to transfer to your new drive.
Next, Migration Assistant may prompt you to enter a new password for the account on the new drive and/or the old password for the account on the old drive.

Select all the items you’d like to transfer to your new drive.

Next, Migration Assistant may prompt you to enter a new password for the account on the new drive and/or the old password for the account on the old drive.

Step 7

Once you begin the transfer, a loading bar will appear and cycle through each of the data categories that you selected on the previous screen (applications, documents, etc.).
Your computer may need to restart multiple times during the transfer process.
When the transfer is complete, the Migration Complete window will appear.

Once you begin the transfer, a loading bar will appear and cycle through each of the data categories that you selected on the previous screen (applications, documents, etc.).

Your computer may need to restart multiple times during the transfer process.

When the transfer is complete, the Migration Complete window will appear.

Once all of your data is migrated, you can format your old drive and use it as an external drive with an SSD enclosure, or sell it for someone else to use!

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                    Taylor Dixon

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Bob Yeats - Dec 3, 2019

You said you would be covering migrating to a “new drive” but you only showed migrating to a new computer. I have a new macbook pro, which has an internal SSD that is too small to migrate to, so I was planning on using a bigger external SSD as my main & bootup disk, and I want to migrate to that disk. If I bootup the new computer from the external disk, will the migration automatically go to the external disk? Or can you see another approach that would work?

thx

Taylor Dixon - Dec 3, 2019

You know Bob, that is a good point! I guess I meant “new drive in a new computer.” RE: your situation, I think your proposed method should work. MacOS should either let you choose which drive you want to restore to (in which case you can choose the big external one), or it will just copy to the default / boot disk. If neither of those things happen and you can’t migrate everything directly to the external drive, you can try to do a partial restore to your small internal SSD by only selecting the crucial info from the restore menu, and then manually copy everything else over to the external SSD as a storage disk. I hope this helps, sorry for the misleading title!

Luna Terra - Nov 18, 2022

thank you so much

Introduction#

What you need#

Team#

Introduction

What you need

Team