Migration Assistant - can't find the files

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Hello everyone,

I am a completely new Mac user, though I've been using iPad ever since it came out. So I decided to switch from Windows to Mac and so far it's been interesting.

My Migration Assistant didn't run right at the beginning. I still don't know why, I did everything as told, however the Migration Assistant ran for hours looking for the other computer and not finding it. Frustrated and lacking time, I left it for later. So now, I ran it again last night and it worked! Yay! It ran all night to migrate my files, documents and photos mainly, and after about 9 hrs. it finished. Now, I've been looking all morning all around my mac to find the files and I just have no idea where they are.

I know other people have had this problem, and yes, there is a new user on the computer, I logged into that new user - which has the name of my old laptop so it was a no-brainer - and they are nowhere to be found. I looked at the storage and a large amount of it is gone, I only have some 35 GB left, that means the data is there. But where?

Please help, I am getting pretty frustrated.

PS: Using MacBook Air with Mavericks

Thanks.
 
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MacInWin

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I don't know if this will help, but the way MA works is that if you run it BEFORE you create an account on the Mac, it will put the files into the user that you first create as a part of that process. However, if you run it AFTER creating an account, like you did, then the files will be put in a new account with the best name MA can find. In your case, that was the name of the old laptop. What is curious is that when you logged into that new account you didn't see the files at all. That should not happen. You didn't say, but did you reboot between the migration and the logging into the new account? If not, I'd try that sequence to see if you can then see the files in that new account. I admit that's a long shot, but hey, at this point it's better than nothing.
 
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Thanks for the answer Jake. Unfortunately the MA would't work before I created an account and I gave it quite a few tries at that time. I just gave up thinking it wouldn't work period. Now it did work, I am ok with the 2 accounts, I know I can manually move the files later if I want to, the only problem is finding where they went. As I am so new to all this I am also wondering if I'm looking in the right place. Like if I go in Finder, under Documents I should see something, right? I have no idea where I'd find the pictures, I open iPhoto but it's all empty, iMovie the same, Pages ditto.

How do you locate files on a Mac? There is data on this Mac, about 90 GB of it, somewhere.
 
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MacInWin

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Your files should be in your User directory, the one with the little house beside it in Finder. Under that directory you should find the folders and files from your PC, with what was in My Documents now shown, along with any folders in the My Documents folder on the PC. Note that the little house icon in Finder moves with the account that is logged in. I.e., if User1 is logged in the little house should be on the User1 name, but if User2 is logged in the house is beside User2's name. It's trying to show you your HOME folder, see? The only thing I can think of is that somehow you aren't really logging into the new user that MA created. Log into that account and open Finder, then look to see where the house icon is. It should be beside the name of the account, in your case the PC name. Is it there?
 
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Hi Jake,

I've found them! I did a search for one of the names and it popped up. It's under Users/Shared. It's all there, all but somehow mixed up. Anyway, if I open finder I don't see Users, nothing with a house next to it. The only way I can find these is by doing a search for the document type. And they are all locked! Funny thing is that I can access them from both users now, I guess being in shared does that. Now I guess I have to move all this to one user or the other.
 
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MacInWin

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Strange that they arrived there, but good news finding them. You can now move them from Shared to wherever you want them in whichever account you decide to maintain.

Just to make sure I understand, when you boot you log into one or the other of the accounts, right? Are you using passwords for that login? And when you open Finder, what is in the sidebar on the left of the file area? There should be some items listed in that sidebar, including the login name for the active account. It's that one that should have an icon of a house beside it. If you open Finder then from the top menu click on the Finder name and Preferences, then Sidebar, you can check or uncheck items to show in that sidebar. One of those items should be your username. (You will have to do the Preferences setting for each account, that's how OSX works.)
 
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Man, what kind of mac did I get?

I open Finder and there is no top menu. I have a sidebar that lists the favourites> all my files, documents, downloads, applications etc. and that is about it, then the Devices/ Remote Disk and then the color tags. I'll try to put up a picture.

About the accounts, yes, there are passwords for each of them, so switching between them is a pain. I will transfer everything to the original account and then delete the rest.

I can't attach a file, the site upload doesn't seem to work right, can you access the link below? It's a screenshot of the Finder.

*removed link*

Thanks a lot for your patience, I am slowly losing mine :D
 
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MacInWin

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The top menu is the green bar at the top of your screen. Unlike Windows, OSX changes the top bar, as it is called, depending on which application has what is called the focus, that is, which application you are actually working in at the moment. So in your picture, Finder has the focus and the top bar shows the actions you can take in Finder. Click on Finder, then Preferences and follow what I suggested. Also, in your picture I can see that you don't have your home folder in the sidebar. I do see Documents, which is one folder inside your home folder. I also see "All My Files" which is, at least for me, not very useful. Yes, it shows all my files, but only those that OSX thinks are mine. In your case, the migrated files are not technically yours because they were migrated into a different account, so they don't show up there.

So, open Finder, click on the word Finder in the top bar, then Preferences, Sidebar and select what you want to show in the sidebar. I have all my external drives selected, plus my home folder, documents, downloads and Applications checked so that I don't have to go down the folder chain when I want just those files. But set it up how you want, it's totally up to you.
 
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Thanks Jake I got it. Didn't realize that so I guess it's not all so self explanatory ... or maybe I'm dumb :Smirk:, but I got it now.

Awesome, thanks again. Will be back soon with some more dumb questions, I'm sure :D
 

chscag

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Awesome, thanks again. Will be back soon with some more dumb questions, I'm sure

As I'm sure Jake will tell you... there are no dumb questions. Just the ones you didn't ask. ;)
 
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MacInWin

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As chscag says, there are no dumb questions. We may occasionally give a dumb answer, though!
 
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Hello guys!
I had the same problem recently with an old mac, and the issue is the FIreVault encryption, make sure to have it turned off on the old system before migrating the files. If it's on the files will migrate, but they won't be accessible because they are encrypted.
  1. Choose Apple menu > System Preferences, then click Security & Privacy.
  2. Click the FileVault tab.
  3. Click
    Locked
    , then enter an administrator name and password.
  4. Click Turn Off FileVault
 
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Welcome to the forum.

Just a note that you posted into a thread that is eight years old. You can see the date on the top line of the post.
 

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