New iMac coming, need some migration strategies: I pulled the trigger to replace my 7 year old 27" iMac. The new one is loaded to the gills , however I am nervous about my migration of...

quigsby

I pulled the trigger to replace my 7 year old 27" iMac. The new one is loaded to the gills , however I am nervous about my migration of LR and pictures. Does anyone have any suggestions or experience with transferring everything to a new system. Thanks in advance. mike

pappleg

Does your old iMac have a Time Capsule backup device? If so, all you need to do is connect it to your new system and perform a Restore and it will pull the last backup from iCloud. Also, if as often recommended here, you used a separate external drive to store your photos and connect it to your new iMac all of your pics as well as the Lightroom cataloging of same will load. I did force myself before the install to do an extreme cull of my stored pics eliminating dupes and photos that really did not make the cut. Painful but I am glad I did it-went from just over 13k pics to 1,895. Good luck, Pat

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204350

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

quigsby wrote:

I pulled the trigger to replace my 7 year old 27" iMac. The new one is loaded to the gills , however I am nervous about my migration of LR and pictures. Does anyone have any suggestions or experience with transferring everything to a new system. Thanks in advance. mike

Yes. Use Apple Migration Assistant Utility (on every Mac in the Utilities folder in the Applications folder). It can move your entire User Profile from old to new (or just certain files). Be sure to install and update ALL software separately. That cures a multitude of problems.

Visit Apple’s Support page for full details.

If you’re near an Apple Store, buy it there and they can migrate your data first.

Be sure you back up everything from your old Mac *before* you migrate!

Once you have your new iMac fully up to date (Mac OS and all software and all migrated data), use a separate, new external drive on your new iMac for a FULL Time Machine backup.

After Migration, everything should be where it was on the old Mac. You will need all credentials (user ID and passwords) for software installation and Apple ID and email, Adobe ID, etc., so gather this ahead. If using two-factor identification for security, have your iPhone or iPad nearby.

Know where your Lightroom Catalog and linked images reside, so you can re-link them as needed. All should work fine...

FreddB Loc: PA - Delaware County

Isn't that why they have the "genius bar"?
If they screw up, they fix it ☺

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

FreddB wrote:

Isn't that why they have the "genius bar"?
If they screw up, they fix it ☺

They're not all real geniuses. Some of them will screw up your computer. That's why I always always always back up my entire machine on a regular basis. If it's running when I take it to an Apple Store, I make a full backup first. That way, if they zap my drive, I can reinstall everything on another one.

eadler

If you have an external hard drive use the time machine backup utility which will make a mirror image of your old machine's hard drive. Then restore to your new machine. Note that depending on how much data you have this could take a while

bbrown5154 Loc: Baltimore, MD

quigsby wrote:

I pulled the trigger to replace my 7 year old 27" iMac. The new one is loaded to the gills , however I am nervous about my migration of LR and pictures. Does anyone have any suggestions or experience with transferring everything to a new system. Thanks in advance. mike

I just did a migration from an older Imac to a sparkly new one. LOL.
and it worked like a charm. Its pretty painless.
I did it over my network and it did take about 4 hrs. but I had a lot of stuff to migrate.
Next time I would try either an ether net or firewire (or is it thunderbolt now?) cable.
The other really positive thing for me, in regards to migration, is that I can still use my NX2 Post Processing
Software (for Nikons) and I love that software way more than Capture NXD.
Good luck
Oh and you are going to LOVE the new Retina Display. Its really nice.

peterg Loc: Santa Rosa, CA

burkphoto wrote:

They're not all real geniuses. Some of them will screw up your computer. That's why I always always always back up my entire machine on a regular basis. If it's running when I take it to an Apple Store, I make a full backup first. That way, if they zap my drive, I can reinstall everything on another one.

I successfully used Apple's Genius Bar for a similar problem. The "Genius" asked me if I used Time Machine. I said "Of course I do". He said only a very small minority of Apple users use Time Machine. I have no sympathy for users who ignore Time Machine. Migration Assistant is great.

jeep_daddy Loc: Prescott AZ

quigsby wrote:

I pulled the trigger to replace my 7 year old 27" iMac. The new one is loaded to the gills , however I am nervous about my migration of LR and pictures. Does anyone have any suggestions or experience with transferring everything to a new system. Thanks in advance. mike

Personally, I would NOT use Time Machine or any other migration software to do this. I'd use LR to move all files to a large external drive including the catalog. Then I'd deactivate LR and PS. Download both and do a fresh install and activate them. Then I'd reinstall any other applications that you use regularly. Don't install the crap that you don't use. Everyone has crap they don't use. Now you are up to date with fresh installs.

All you have left to do it copy all your other documents to the external drive and paste them into your documents folder on the new computer.

bpulv Loc: Buena Park, CA

pappleg wrote:

Does your old iMac have a Time Capsule backup devi... (show quote)

If you don't have an Apple Time Machine device, you can use almost any external hard drive and direct your Time Machine backup to that drive. Once you complete a full backup of your old computer, just restore everything from your Time Machine backup.

I would not discard your old iMac. If it is a 2010 or newer iMac, you can use it as a second monitor by using your new iMac's Targeted Display Mode. I use my old 27" iMac with my new one with that function. It allows me to among other things, display Lightroom on one screen and Photoshop on the other. Since your computer will think that both screens are one screen in split mode, you can use a single keyboard, mouse, trackpad or Wacom Tablet to move between the two displays. It really speeds up editing significantly and the only extra cost is the cable between the two computers.

elliott937 Loc: St. Louis

Quisby, after you power up your new iMac (I love iMacs), and begin downloading software that you've already paid for, let us know if you lost any software or hardware, especially hardware.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

peterg wrote:

I successfully used Apple's Genius Bar for a similar problem. The "Genius" asked me if I used Time Machine. I said "Of course I do". He said only a very small minority of Apple users use Time Machine. I have no sympathy for users who ignore Time Machine. Migration Assistant is great.

Time Machine, Windows Migration Assistant, and Migration Assistant are three free and indispensable tools that come with every Mac.

I think the $80 Parallels Desktop is right up there with them, if you have to run Windows. I ran Windows on my Mac for years with it. I only needed one computer on my desk. Yay! It works great, but you must have sufficient processor cores, RAM, video memory, and disk space, not to mention the ability to switch mental gears and use the keyboard differently for each OS.

smf85 Loc: Freeport, IL

Generally when you restore from Time Machine only application data should be restored onto the new computer. Applications shouldn’t be restored as they are backed up to restore to the old system not the new. Better to reinstall the application - way fewer problems.

On the other hand if you restore the whole hard drive everything including the applications should restore correctly.

I’ve restored a lot of systems of the years professionally - these two procedures work the best.

leftj Loc: Texas

quigsby wrote:

I pulled the trigger to replace my 7 year old 27" iMac. The new one is loaded to the gills , however I am nervous about my migration of LR and pictures. Does anyone have any suggestions or experience with transferring everything to a new system. Thanks in advance. mike

Just make sure your old Mac is backed up. Turn on both computers and the new Mac will lead you right through it.