Upgrade from Mountain Lion to High Sierra

[fielker]

I have recently upgraded from Lion to Mountain Lion, with not too much disruption. I have an iMac, 21.5-inch, mid 2011, memory is 8 GB. My HD has 808 GB free out of 999 GB. Backup is to a 500 Gb external HD. I am considering upgrading to High Sierra.

I have worries about losing information, even though Apple Support has assured me that all will be OK. My worries include:

saved user names, passwords and card details;
TextEdit;
Pages and Numbers;
iCal;
Mail;
JPeg and TIFF.

Any advice would be appreciated.

David

 

[MacInWin]

Well, theoretically the upgrade should go well, but in computing, anything can go wrong. Your backups should be good, as long as you test the backup before launching the upgrade. If you do an upgrade and do NOT reformat the drive, everything you mention should be saved. If you want to do a full update, including a reformat of the drive, if your backup has that information included (and it should) then restoration will put it back.

TextEdit, Pages, Numbers, iCal and Mail will be replaced by the newest versions (iCal becomes Cal). Files like jpeg and tiff files will be left alone. I assume your "saved user names, passwords and card details" means things saved in Safari, in which case they should be preserved as well if you do an upgrade without reformatting the drive.

If you do a reformat/reinstall, when it boots for the first time it will offer to migrate data for you. Take that option, point to your backup and let it migrate everything. When done, your login account should be exactly as it is now and all your data should be where you expect it to be.

But as I said, if you do what is called an overwrite upgrade, everything should be left in place for you as it is. Backup first, test the backup to see that what you want is there, then do the upgrade.

 

[fielker]

Jake

Thanks. I'll try when I feel strong enough!

David

 

[IWT]

Thanks. I'll try when I feel strong enough!

Go for it, David. It may be a Goliath, but remember who won.

Ian

 

[Slydude]

Go for it, David. It may be a Goliath, but remember who won.

Ian

ROTFL. Wish I had thought of that Ian.

 

[fielker]

Jake, just a check. I want to avoid doing a reformat by mistake. How and when will I be offered a reformat?

David

 

[MacInWin]

To be honest, I don't remember, but it was pretty obvious when it came along. I think it's the default NOT to format, and that you have to choose to do so. Maybe somebody who has upgraded recently will have a better answer. Just read each screen carefully during the installation and you should be ok.

 

[Slydude]

@David I assume that you are still conducting good backups. If so you should be good to go if anything does go wrong. As usual, Jake is correct: The default behavior is to not format the drive. The last several times I have updated my OS i've done what you want to do.

 

[fielker]

Thanks to you both. It's getting late here in London: I may try this tomorrow!

 

[fielker]

Just to let you know that I upgraded on Monday. There were several problems, but I have been guided through them by Rebecca from Apple Help, who has spent long periods on the phone telling me exactly what to do. All major problems seem to be solved, and wonderful Rebecca will continue to deal with anything else that crops up.

Thanks for YOUR help and encouragement!

One small problem, while I'm here ... I am being encouraged to upgrade Firefox. Will this preserve all my bookmarks and passwords? I need to keep it, I think, because the current Safari does not always behave itself.

David

 

[IWT]

I am being encouraged to upgrade Firefox. Will this preserve all my bookmarks and passwords?

Yes. There should be no problem with that.

You could, of course, back up all your Firefox settings as a precaution.

All of the changes you make in Firefox, such as your home page, the toolbars you use, extensions you have installed, saved passwords and your bookmarks, are all stored in a special folder, called your "profile".

The following article tell you how to locate your Profile which you could copy as a backup in the very unlikely event that any data was lost.

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/k...x-stores-user-data#w_how-do-i-find-my-profile

Ian

 

[fielker]

Ian

Strange: the article doesn't seem help.

If I open th eFirefox menu, 'Help' is not listed.

If I go to Finder in the Dock an open it, 'go'' is not listed.

David

 

[MacInWin]

The "Go" command in Finder is on the top bar of the screen when the screen says "Finder" in the upper left corner. I suspect the Firefox Help is there also, when the top line on the screen says Firefox. Neither of those are in the actual window for Finder or Firefox.

 

[pm-r]

I am being encouraged to upgrade Firefox. Will this preserve all my bookmarks and passwords?

Yes, as Ian mentioned, all your FF settings will remain, and don't be surprised if Firefox suggests another update in a few more days, it has a habit if doing so, so just do as they suggest.

You can get a good idea of all the updates they do buy looking at the charts here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox_version_history#Versions_60_through_69





- Patrick
======

 

[pm-r]

Ian

Strange: the article doesn't seem help.

If I open th eFirefox menu, 'Help' is not listed.

If I go to Finder in the Dock an open it, 'go'' is not listed.

David

If I dare say so, I think not all are on the same pages with this discussion.

Bottom line, just make sure you have and keep a current backup. Clone backup or Time Machine backup or both.





- Patrick
======

 

[IWT]

Ian

Strange: the article doesn't seem help.

If I open th eFirefox menu, 'Help' is not listed.

If I go to Finder in the Dock an open it, 'go'' is not listed.

David

I fully understand your situation, David. I think the article does, perhaps, help more than you realise.

If you look at the section headed "Finding your profile without opening Firefox", it explains how to get to your Profile - which you could copy elsewhere if needed. It doesn't involve the "Help" menu at at all.

It's a question of navigating to where your Firefox Profile is located on your Mac.

But as our job is to help you, come back if the explanation is unhelpful. There is this video. I'll give you the Link, but it's boring, has background "Muzak" and is rather slow to get to the point: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8I5SU77WNDI

This Link seems to be a text copy of it but has the advantage that, like my first Link I ever gave you, tells you the navigation path to your Profile: https://www.howtogeek.com/255587/how-to-find-your-firefox-profile-folder-on-windows-mac-and-linux/

Keep asking till you get it. That's what we're here for, David.

Ian

Bottom line: updating FF won't do anything to your settings. But if you want "belt & braces", then your Profile can be copied.

 

[pm-r]

Bottom line: updating FF won't do anything to your settings. But if you want "belt & braces", then your Profile can be copied.

I really don't know what David's competence level is for mucking about and copying user system stuff, but if its not too great, then maybe just keeping a current backup working would be a better method.

It doesn't take much to muck things up, but there again maybe David's a Mac tech fixit guru. I don't know, but just saying… don't give the dog too big a bone that it might choke on… ;-)



- Patrick
======

 

[fielker]

Sorry ... the various instructions given in the pages to which you have referred me all break down because links in the chains are not there. For instance, Finder at the top left of toolbar does not list Go; I can get as far as Library but there is not Application Support.

Thanks for trying. My Apple Help advisor is due to call me this afternoon and I'll see if she can guide me through the process. I'll let you know.

David

 

[IWT]

OK, David. Totally understand. Good luck with the lady.

BTW - are you saying that on a blank Desktop, your Top Menu Bar does NOT look like this:



Ian

 

[fielker]

Ian

Yes, it does. But there is also a Finder in my Dock, which incidentally contains Recents. Previously Recent Items was under the Apple logo.

David