setting up new iMac

[nickyr]

Hi everyone

My new iMac arrives today.

In the past I've used Migration Assistant to set up a new machine. However given that my current iMac is ancient I'm looking at doing a fresh set-up as I don't really want to copy across any old garbage from my old iMac.

All my data (photos, video, documents. iTunes, etc) is stored on external SSDs, so the only stuff on my iMac is the OS, Apps, etc.... I intend re-installing Photoshop, Lightroom, MS Office as I use their subscription services. Other Apps I've copied onto a further external drive to then copy across to my new iMac.

Are there any pitfalls in doing this? Will I miss anything?

I have made a SuperDuper clone of my existing system so could use this but then I'd be copying old stuff across which I want to avoid.

Any help, opinions, warnings, etc are extremely welcome

thanks, Nick

 

[ferrarr]

Apps usually, need to be installed, drag and drop does not work for most of them. So you may want to get all the installers downloaded to that external drive.


Bob -

Sent from my iPad using Mac-Forums

 

[nickyr]

Apps usually, need to be installed, drag and drop does not work for most of them. So you may want to get all the installers downloaded to that external drive.


Bob -

Sent from my iPad using Mac-Forums

thanks Bob - I figured that would be the case

 

[MacInWin]

Passwords in Safari and Keychain? MA moves them for you, but if you do it alone, I'm not sure how to move them over.

 

[chscag]

I believe if Nick is using iCloud syncing of his keychain that his passwords from Safari and other Keychain passwords will be moved to his new iMac. Otherwise he will have to enter them again with his new iMac.

 

[MacInWin]

He hadn't mentioned iCloud, so I wanted to remind him of that little trap. Not sure about Mail, either. Unless his old mail messages are not important, I don't think they will be on the new machine or are they also synced through iCloud?

 

[nickyr]

thanks everyone

iMac delivered at 3pm, all unpacked, plugged in and up and running by 6 - clean set-up from new, all software re-installed, passwords, mail, etc all up and running. My only glitch was setting up my ICC paper profiles in LR, but a quick download from Canon sorted all that out.

 

[MacInWin]

Congratulations, and I'm only a little bit jealous.

 

[nickyr]

well what can I say?

One day in and this machine is just amazing. It's so much faster than the old iMac. I have put another 8GB of RAM in (see my other post)which should help further but I'm so glad I went with the SSD option over the fusion drive.

 

[chscag]

I'm so glad I went with the SSD option over the fusion drive.

When I ordered my iMac, I compared prices with an SSD and without (Fusion drive). I came to the conclusion that spending the extra dollars to get a reasonably large enough SSD was worth it and very glad that I did.

What are you going to do with your older machine? I gave mine to my son.

 

[nickyr]

What are you going to do with your older machine? I gave mine to my son.

I intended to give it to my daughter, but she says that she's more than happy with her MBA and wouldn't use it (it's a generational thing I guress - shes 18 shortly) so I guess I'll be wiping it and selling it :-(

It'll be an excellent machine for someone, particularly with an SSD swap for the hard drive. It still looks like it came straight out of the box.