How to Transfer Files from Old Mac to a New MacBook Pro

Your documents and other data can be easily transferred from your old Mac to a new MacBook Pro using Migration Assistant, a built-in utility in Mac operating systems (macOS High Sierra at the time of this writing).

However, before you begin migrating your data, make sure that the following conditions are true:
[listNum]■Your both old and new Mac computers are on the same Wi-Fi or wired network
■Both the Mac computers can communicate with each other
■Both the Mac computers are powered on and are within your reach
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Once all the above conditions are met, here’s how you can transfer your files from your old Mac to a new MacBook Pro:

■Prepare Migration Assistant (On both Mac computers)
Click Go from the menu bar, click Utilities, double-click Migration Assistant on the Utilities window, click Continue on the first screen, enter your account’s password in the box when prompted, and click OK. This launches the Migration Assistant utility that further prepares your Mac for migration. This is the preliminary step that you must perform on your both old and new Mac computers.















■Define source and destination Macs
Select the To another Mac radio button on your old Mac, click Continue, get to your new MacBook Pro, leave the From a Mac, Time Machine backup, or startup disk radio button selected, and click Continue. This defines the source (old) and destination (new) Mac computers, and the two Macs begin searching each other over the network.












■Authenticate the two Macs
Click Continue on the new MacBook Pro when it discovers the old Mac, note the security code displayed on the new (destination) Mac computer, get to the old (source) Mac, confirm that the screen displays the same security code, and click Continue. This tells both the Macs that they’re connected to the correct computer. Once both the Mac computer identify each other, the old Mac waits for the new MacBook Pro to select the data to migrate.












■Choose data
Wait while the new Mac discovers the transferrable data on your old Mac, uncheck the boxes representing the data you don’t want to migrate, and click Continue. This tells the old Mac which data you want to migrate to your new MacBook Pro.






■Set a new password
Click Set Password while on your new MacBook Pro, type and confirm a strong password in the Password and Re-Enter Password fields, click Set Password, and click Continue. This sets the password for the administrator account that is also migrated from the old Mac along with the data, and proceeds to the next step. Make sure that the password you define here is strong, and isn’t easy to guess.









■Define a new user (Conditional)
Enter a unique name in the New name field, enter a unique login name in the User account name field, and click Continue. This defines a new name for the account that is to be migrated along with the data. This box appears conditionally, i.e. if your new MacBook Pro has an identical user account to the one your old Mac has, Mac prompts you with this box, and lets you define a new name in order to avoid any conflicts with the existing account.






■Wait while your data is migrated to your new MacBook Pro from your old Mac






■Click Quit on the Migration Complete box on both your new and old Macs, and continue using your new MacBook Pro with the migrated data