To view a file’s location in Finder, click the magnifying glass. Search for an application’s files by dropping its icon onto the AppCleaner window. We can re-purpose AppCleaner to help us find them all.ĪppCleaner helps users uninstall applications by revealing all the files associated with a given app. It works by searching a few specific places for files that include the application’s name. If you must copy an application manually, you should try to bring along the its files.
Because of this, I’d recommend a fresh install on the new system. The canonical location is ~/Library/Preferences which is what macOS’s system application typically use.Ĭopying applications is tricky. Not all applications put their files in the same place, so you’ll usually need to rummage through your system to make sure you’ve got everything. Under macOS, user preferences can be stored in a couple of places. We will deal with your Library folder next.
Most users keep their files here, so copying over the content to your new Mac is a no-brainer.Ĭopy over everything but the Library folder. You can copy the files by dragging and dropping, just as you would with a normal directory. The content of your home folder obviously needs to make it over to your new Mac. This is particularly important because preference files in the wrong place are useless. That way you won’t misplace them on the new system. For example, if you have a file from /Users/alexander/Library/Preferences, you could put that in a folder with the exact same file path. It can be helpful when organizing your media to recreate the original file path.
You could even use network storage, but if we’re transferring a lot of data over WiFi, you won’t have much fun. If you don’t have one, you can use a hard drive as well. The easiest way to handle this process is over a USB drive.
Make sure that the account name for your user on the new Mac is exactly the same. That will be the same as your account name. If you’re not sure what that is, look at the name of your home folder. The most important thing here is the account name, or short name, of your account. Setting Up Your New Macīecause you’ll be copying over the exact settings from your old Mac, you need to make sure your new Mac’s user is configured in the same way as your old user. But if you’re interested in capturing Preferences related to the OS, like Dock and trackpad settings, this should get you there. If you want to copy over absolutely everything, this probably isn’t the method for you – Migration Assistant will work a little better.