New Mac Setup: Migration Assistant or Start Fresh?

Mark says, "I heard on the last episode that Dave did not use migration assistant on his new mini M4. I am getting an updated Mac Studio M4 for my work computer and have been using migration assistant for many years and many, many models, 20 plus years. But I, like Dave, feel that it might be time to do a fresh install of everything when I get the new Mac Studio, but I am terrified." Yeah, it's pretty scary. >> I hear you. >> [laughter] >> I have many subscription softwares, most important the Adobe family and many third-party ones, not [snorts] from the app not from the App Store. I know many of them have either a file that acts as a license stored somewhere on my hard drive or hidden registration settings in some other folders, maybe application support. Uh I would need to sign out of every software program so that I can install a a would I rather need to sign out of every software program so that I can install a fresh version of the third-party software. Uh it So, third-party software will not think I am trying to install it on multiple computers if I only have a license for one. Other thought is how much crud would be brought over by doing a very selective migration assistant? What do I bring? What do I leave? And if something doesn't work afterwards, how do I troubleshoot what part of the application is missing and where it is located? Keep up the great podcast, Mark." So, lot to unpack in there. >> Yeah. >> Understood. >> Yeah, it's a tough question for sure. Um and like all of your concerns are valid and all of your concerns are the reason that we all just use migration assistant and bring all the cruft with us all the time, right? Like that that's just like this is you are articulating exactly the thing that Apple set out to and very much did solve with migration assistant. But it comes with a cost. And so I would be very I would I would counsel you against trying to do a very selective migration assistant. If you're going to bother to bring over cruft, just bring it all with you. It's not that bad. Right? I it This is coming from someone who intentionally started fresh. But if you're going to start fresh, don't like start half fresh or even 75% fresh. Like it's not going to be the fresh start. You don't know what it is that's that that is the cruft that matters, right? For your specific setup. If you did, you would have cleaned it out already and so would I. So starting fresh means starting fresh. What I did though to mitigate against these kinds of things was a couple of things. The The I would say the biggest one, but there might be a bigger one. The biggest one was leaving my Mac mini on my network and running for days, actually a couple of weeks afterwards. It is still running at this moment with my old install. I don't have it launch any apps, but it is sitting there on my network. It is going to be repurposed as my headless mini that's going to run a bunch of the things that my headless iMac currently runs cuz it's more efficient and more powerful. But so it it will remain on the network, but not as it currently is. I also, of course, did a full backup of it two of them in fact. I did one to my disk station and then I did another just to a uh like a an SSD an external SSD that I have like an OWC one of those envoys. Uh just so I could have it easily and plug in if I realize, "Oh, crap, I need something." Now, I did migrate certain things over. I brought I used Thunder Thunderbird for my mail, so I copied that over. I copied my photos library over. Although, I didn't have to, I could have let it just sync everything back down from the cloud. I didn't want to let it go through that. I I had already done that kind of it some point in the last couple of years when I had an issue. So, I didn't really need to do that again. Um and my music library, same thing. But other than that, I installed apps fresh. I dealt with the headache that is absolutely a headache, but far less of a headache than any of us ever thinks it's going to be when we start down this path uh of, you know, re-licensing the apps that I needed to re-license. It's really not that bad. Um but having the other machine running, had I run into a thing, and I think I did actually, I think my Setapp license had hit a limit and so I was like, "Oh, I'll just go uninstall or log out of Setapp on the on the M1." And then I just logged in on the M4 and everything was fine. Um didn't take me very long at all. And what the part that surprised me the most is the point that I realized when I had already essentially finished with the migration. And by that, I mean obviously I didn't migrate most things. I migrated data, but not app data, not settings, and certainly not application binaries or anything. But you know, I knew, "Okay, I'm going to have to reinstall literally every app that I'm going to use." Like that's what this is process is about. And I I did that on the first day. And then like by somewhere in the middle of the second day, I was like, wait, I I've been using my computer. I haven't installed any more apps. Like, what am I missing? And the answer was nothing. Like, I I I I had a lot of crap on that old computer that I just didn't need. And certainly I can install apps. Like, hey, if I if it's something I have a license for, then I already have the license. I've always stored those in one password for for this and many other reasons. And it's so I'm not that worried about it, but it was it was interesting that realization is like, oh, I've been using this. I don't like, it's done. I didn't have to spend four days installing apps. I I didn't spend four hours. I think I I may maybe spent 40 minutes installing apps. It was it was really it it's not as hard as you think and you don't use as many apps as you think or as certainly I don't. Um but what I did do first was Claude code. I opened up a Claude code session. I gave it access to my drive and I said, go. And figure out what I use and what I might be missing. And it went through and it identified It was like, you're going to want to resync your keyboard maestro things. And I'm like, yep, okay, good. I already had that on my list, but like, it kind of went through and and made made me a checklist. So, uh that did help. Uh I've done it enough that I kind of already knew that I had to make a checklist, but it it I I there were there was something that Claude code caught that I didn't. So, you know, that that helps, but it's really not that bad. If you can leave the other computer running for at least a couple of days so that you can easily access something you missed or have a clone of it that, you know, on a drive that you can easily access. That that that would have worked for me, too. I don't think it would have mattered. So, I don't know. That those are my thoughts on it. So, >> Yeah. I'm uh I mean, if you are scared, I'm Kiwi Graham put in our Discord chat what I would recommend is like if you're not going to do and I think this is a good tip just in general. If you're not going to do a full nuke and pave, use migration assistant and then use you know, CleanMyMac to go through and find craft and remove it. It is a great tool for that. There are other tools, too. You can use other tools, but CleanMyMac is my my preferred one. I think it's the easiest to use. It's got a great uninstaller that's going to go if you're removing apps, like you said Dave, you know, earlier. It'll find the apps you're not using. It'll literally tell you, "Hey, you haven't launched these apps in 2 years." It's like and then it will uninstall them and it will go find the bits and pieces and get that get the craft out for you. So, you don't have to do that work. Um you can find your large files and archive them. You can, you know, like just spend your time doing that. kind of the reverse, right? You can either spend your time reinstalling everything and reconfiguring everything or you could do the opposite and just like bring everything over and clean it up. >> Yeah. >> You know, spend the time to clean it up. Either way, you're going to be spending time. So, you just got to choose what's easier for you. It's probably time and situation. For me, I find it easier the other way because then I can just upgrade and I can take my time to go through when I have available time to do that stuff. The other way around, it's like I got to get back up and running. I need my tools. I need my software. I need to So, you're spending upfront time to get back up and running. You probably going to end up with cleaner. I mean, the reality is nuke and pave you're going to end up with a cleaner system cuz >> For sure. >> CleanMyMac's not going to find everything, but it does a great job of finding 95% probably of the stuff. Like >> It's true. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. [laughter] It's >> And then my >> I didn't intentionally put this right after the sponsor spot about CleanMyMac, but but it's a great like it it absolutely This is what probably not probably. This is one of the reasons why they sponsor the show because it it's so relevant to what we do here. Yeah, exactly. >> Well, and like I said, there are other I mean, there are other tools. We've talked about a lot of other tools for finding large files and other ways to find large fi- you know, you can use other things. There's uninstallers. There's all kinds of apps you could use for this. This CleanMyMac is just nice cuz it's all-in-one place. It's all works great. It's got a great, you know, all the things we've talked about. >> Yeah, yeah. >> Um but uh the other thing that I was going to mention with the concern on um you know, exceeding your licenses for subscription-based software. Most of the bigger ones and even some smaller ones, what I would remind you, and I just checked this with Setapp cuz you mentioned Setapp. Um most of them have a login for a website. And if you log into your account, there's usually a place where you can see and manage the devices that have licenses. So, you know, in Setapp, I just logged in and I can see I've got four licensed and they're the ones that I would expect and I can see the names of, you know, each Mac that is using a license. And I can disconnect one from their website if I needed to. So, if you did leave an old device on, uh that might be all right. And I know I can do that with my Adobe subscription. I know I can do that with my Tower subscription. There's a bunch of these subscriptions I have where I can just go to the website, log into my account, and manage the devices there. So, if you do need to remove a device so you can add a new one, that's usually an option as well. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um I I will say it, you know, just to reiterate, it every time I've done a nuke and pave, I finish the process and wonder why I avoid doing this more often. It's It's for me always easier and smoother than I anticipate. But, I'm like you. It's like I need to be able to get my work done. So, if I carve out an afternoon to do this, it can't become a 3-day process, right? It I need But, that's why keeping the other machine around is like, "Okay, if this turns out to be a absolute disaster, I wipe it and the new machine clean." And when it asks me what do I want to do, I say migration assistant, and I have it go get the thing, and I punt. Like, that's it. >> Yeah. >> It's, you know, >> Fair. >> Um so, like there is like there are a lot of safety nets built into this. >> Well. >> So. >> Especially for us, you know, like I don't have my old machine. I have my old machine. So, I have my old machine has a carbon copy clone, and all my critical important files are on my Synology and and synced through, you know, oh god, I'm going to blank on the name of this >> That's Synology. >> ChronoSync. Synology drive. Oh, ChronoSync, too. >> Yeah, use ChronoSync. >> But, yeah, Synology I Whatever you So, critical stuff synced there. I also have my Backblaze. I have a million places where I can go get stuff if I need to recover stuff. So, you know, like if you're if This is one of the reasons why it's like practice good backup and archiving and stuff like that, and it's even less of a worry cuz you're not going to lose stuff. >> Yes, you have a Well, that's it. Is the systems that we have in place now You know, I I think my uh PTSD for nuking and paving is definitely rooted in the days before >> Right. >> IMAP mail and documents and desktop syncing. However, you do it. iCloud will do both of those things for you, right? But, you can But, you could choose another path. I could, you know, Dropbox was the was the first. And really, it's those two things, right? It's like my data follows me to every computer that I log into. And that is now pretty much ubiquitous. And therefore, it makes starting up like when I get a new iPhone, I often don't migrate over to it, you know, it probably every other year I'm just like, "Yeah, I'll start fresh. It's fine, you know, it's and and all my data is just like there. I log you know, because part of that logging into iCloud brings that with you. And and that's also Apple's intent. Like this is not a an accident.