If your backups are on an external drive, plug it in to your new Mac and select it as Migration Assistant’s source if they’re on a Time Capsule, you could restore wirelessly if you had to just by joining the network that the Time Capsule is on. Just make sure that the backup you’re using is recent, which you can check from Time Machine’s circle-clock icon in your menu bar. If you’ve got a backup that’s directly connected to your old Mac-or a Time Capsule that you’ve been backing up to over your network-you can use the data on that to restore from, and lately, this has been a more consistent method for me. Consider migrating from a Time Machine (or other) backup instead of between machines.

This’ll keep you from running into issues because you moved data from, say, a Mac running 10.13.2 to a Mac that shipped with 10.13 going from a newer version of the OS to an older one can be problematic. Your new Mac will offer to let you transfer your data to it before you even go in and configure a user account if you’re migrating from a Mac that has the latest version of High Sierra, though, I think it’s always best to set up your new computer with a blank user account instead, install any High Sierra updates that are available, and then move your files over using the Migration Assistant program from the Applications> Utilities folder, a shortcut to which is available under Finder’s “Go” menu.Īfterward, you can just delete the dummy account you created from System Preferences> Users & Groups. This doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to update your 2014 iMac to High Sierra rather, just make sure to go to the App Store’s “Updates” tab to check for any incremental updates to Yosemite or whatever it’s running.

Make sure both Macs are running the latest version of their operating systems.

How to update your mac 10.13.2