Does migration assistant move files or copy them?

I'm running Yosemite on a separate partition. I want to copy some of my information from 10.6.8, but I want to leave 10.6.8 intact, as it is still (and will remain for quite some time) my primary operating system. Does migration assistant move the information, or copy it?

It will copy info and won't delete anything from the originating drive. If you are just looking to copy some files, log back into the 10.6.8 and copy them to the user desktop account of the other drive.
If you are looking to migrate a user account, be aware that the account name will need to be different than the one you are currently using in Yosemite.

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Does Migration Assistant move Mailbox (mail.app) IMAP data?

Recently I used migration assistant to move a user from a Lion machine to a Mavericks machine. I couldn't get it to work via direct ethernet (famous "1 minute remaining" bug) [1] so I migrated from a Time Capsule backup.
After migration the User's mailbox was initially empty, though the smart folder and standard folder configuration was as expected (Gmail IMAP setup).
Overnight the Mailbox refilled -- but Activity Windows suggested it was pulling data from Google, not from a local store.
It's as though Migration Assistant excluded the IMAP data [2], expecting it to be reloaded from source. (In this case it might have worked, but risky for several reasons). One expert I know says this is in fact how MA is supposed to work -- but neither of us could find ANY documentation.
Does anyone know if this is correct? Even better -- have you seen any documentation?
Thanks!
john
[1] In retrospect the source machine was configured for automatic logout and it's possible that the logout attempts confounded MA.
[2] Time Machine's standard exclusion plist suggests IMAP data IS backed up.

Does Migration Assistant move native apps like App Store, iTunes etc to a new MBP?

I want to replace my current 2010 13" MBP running Lion with a new 13" MBP 2.9 GHz (not Retina) running either Lion or Mountain Lion. I want to make sure that Migration Assistant does not move the (recently) very buggy native apps on my current machine (App Store, iTunes, iPhoto) to the new machine.

I am organizing my external HD and want to move files NOT COPY them. How do I drag and drop folder contents without Mac automatically copying them to the "drop" location?

I am sorting out all the clutter and duplicate files on my external HD. In doing this I am moving the entire contents of folders to new locations. Some of these folders cointain gigs of info. I do not want to have to spend large amounts of time waiting for hundreds of gigs to copy somewhere then moving the originals to the trash and wait even longer deleting all of them. All I want to do is move the files up a subfolder, but the way Finder goes aobut doing it can be a 400 GB swing taking hours. How do I just "move" them?

Check out this discussion. Worked for me.
http://tinyurl.com/7dmh9p5
Quote:
When I do a drag and drop in Finder to move a folder into another folder it makes a copy of the folder in the new location instead of moving it like the help documentation says and like it used to do in Snow Leopard. I have looked all over in preferences for a setting the contols the move/copy outcome of drag and drop and have been unable to find anything. Is this the way Lion is supposed to work?
MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.1)
This solved my question by jsd2 on Oct 9, 2011 6:33 AM
I did a global change of permissions for the entire documents account in the currrent user account using the get info and apply to enclosed items.
I think what is happening is that the Documents folder normally carries an "everyone deny delete" ACL, meant to protect it from accidental deletion:
$ ls -lde ~/Documents
drwx------+ 6 t1 staff 204 Oct 9 08:51 /Users/t1/Documents
0: group:everyone deny delete
ACLs are special types of permissions that do not show up in GetInfo, but can get propagated if you click "Apply to Enclosed Items" on a folder that carries them. Affected files that acquire that ACL would require password authentication to move or delete them.
I think the following Terminal command (copy and paste it) should remove such ACLs from items within the Documents folder:
chmod -RN ~/Documents/*
Message was edited by: miz_mdk

Where does migration assistant put files?

I just spent 13 hours waiting for the transfer to complete, having selected to transfer music, movies and photos from my iMac to my MacBook Pro. The transfer was successful and the application said now press quit which i did and the computer returned to normal. However i cannot find any of these files on my Pro .. do you know where they could possibly be?

brookefromauckland wrote:
well i've done the transfer and it said it was successful but none of the files are on my laptop :/
See Problems after using Migration Assistant

Does Migration Assistant Have "Drive Options"?

We're planning on acquiring a new iMac this upcoming week, one the has both the 256 GB SSD and the 2 TB HD.
We want to use Migration Assistant in association with our current iMac which only has a 1 TB drive.
Question: does Migration Assistant offer the user choices of where the files from the old iMac are migrated to on the new iMac?
More specifically, we want to put the applications on the 256 GB SSD and all other files on the 2 TB internal HD.
Will Migration Assistant allows us to do this?

Have a read here http://web.me.com/pondini/AppleTips/SetupOther.html
Stefan

Can migration assistant move data from multiple disks (Mac Pro) to a single disk (iMac)

I have recently purchased an iMac and need to migrate my apps, data and accounts from a Mac Pro running OSX 10.5.8. Does Migration Assistant accommodate a multi disk set up (I have my OS and apps on one disk and data on another) or does it only recognise one 'target' disk at a time.

yes. I migrated a server frm lion to mavericks following these notes a while back:
OS X Server: Upgrade and migration from Mountain Lion
i do not recall having any problems with it.

Exactly what files does Migration Assistant migrate?

Does anyone know precisely what files and folders are copied when you select "Other files and folders" in Migration Assistant?
Thanks in advance for any help you can give me.

Hold everything. I found my answer here: https://discussions.apple.com/message/11721764?messageID=11721764#11721764?messa geID=11721764
I used Google to search my terms and this one came up. It seems the search function on here is not as good as Google......as usual.

Where is the list of files that the migration assistant was unable to copy located?

The Migration Assistant successfully finished transferring most of my information between my old MBP and my new rMBP, even thought the "less than a minute remaining" actually took several hours, even using Thunderbolt cables.
At the end of the migration, the Migration Assistant displayed a message "not all of your files could be transferred".
Where is the log containing the list of files that couldn't be transferred?
The only system log entries relating to the migrations system are of the "2/27/15 9:17:14.000 AM kernel[0]: Process systemmigrationd [546] disabling system-wide CPU Throttling" variety.

>> Once I know what those numbers represent
I would suspect--though I don't know for certain--that the hyphenation-marking digits work as in other UNIX programs. Here are two leads:
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/groff/2001-03/msg00026.html
http://www.helsinki.fi/~tapirine/publications/Pirinen-cla-2010.tex
Search them for "odd" or "even" to get started. Good luck.

RubyGems problem: Does migration assistant copy across xcode & Rubygems?

Migration assistant has finished copying across my data and I'm now trying to get my Rails apps running again (I was hoping that Migration Assistant would do the biz with RubyGems, etc). At the moment I'm trying to install all required gems, but struggling with hpricot due to the following error;
sudo gem install hpricot
Building native extensions. This could take a while...
ERROR: Error installing hpricot:
ERROR: Failed to build gem native extension.
/System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/bin/ruby extconf.rb
can't find header files for ruby.
Gem files will remain installed in /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/hpricot-0.8.1 for inspection.
Results logged to /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/hpricot-0.8.1/ext/hpricotscan/gemmake.out
Is this related to xcode or the version of RubyGems? What am I missing?

Pretend you're in charge of writing Migration Assistant for a minute. How are you going to magically know everything about every piece of software everyone could possibly install in various locations on their system? Would you even bother trying, or would you focus on moving the things that most normal people care about and just assume that anyone who knew how to install their own stuff on the command line can probably figure out how to do it again?

HT4889 Am I wrong or does Migration Assistant not work in Mountain Lion (10.8.2) when migrating from a PowerPC running Tiger (10.4.11)? Apple really needs to get on the ball or face losing people buying their new desktop products.

The title alone speaks to my frustration about this issue.
Used the process that was recommended by Apple to migrate from my "Lampshade" iMac (PPC running 10.4.11) to the new iMac (Intel running 10.8.2) and I got bupkiss...
Just a spinning wheel (not beachball) and no drive recognized using Migration Assistant for both nor when using Target Mode on the iMac running 10.4.11 and Migration Assistant on the iMac running 10.8.2. Which is ironic, or more accurately oxymoronic, since the iMac in Target Mode (10.4.11) is recognized on the desktop of the iMac running 10.8.2 but not in the Migration Assistant. And before you can misdiagnose..it is not the Thunderbolt connection since I have the Apple recommended Thunderbolt to Firewire adapter and also used the Firewire 400 to 800 cable to expedite the transfer.
On a personal note...
I'm not bashing Apple for this...they are "head and shoulders" above the competition in what they do but I've been burned a few times so I feel I can share a small bit of loyal customer advice...I understand your iOS and mobile products hold huge sway in company focus and market-share but I find it a tad unwise to slack on the desktop applications. I don't recall any app for the iPhone/iPad family being made on the iPhone/iPad...only from desktop applications if I recall correctly. And how can I clearly "Move my Mac even further ahead" as your marketing states when I can't even migrate my files from my old Mac to my new one in a simple fashion as per your instructions?
I thank anyone in advance with an answer or even a workaround for this issue and please have a great day.

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4889
Migration from Mac OS X v10.4 Tiger to OS X Lion
Migration from Mac OS X v10.4 computers to OS X Lion over your Wi-Fi or a wired network is not supported. However, if both Macs are equipped with a FireWire port, you can use Target Disk Mode to transfer your data:
Verify that both Macs are equipped with a FireWire port. Note that different model Macs may have different FireWire connectors, which will require an appropriate cable, such as FireWire 400 to FireWire 800.
On the Mac you want to transfer data from, Restart, and immediately hold the T key.
Wait for the FireWire logo to appear on the screen. If it does not, restart and try again.
Connect both Macs via the FireWire cable.
On the Mac you want to transfer data to, Open the Migration Assistant application.
Select the option "From another Mac, PC, Time Machine backup, or other disk" and click Continue.
Select the option "From a Time Machine backup or other disk" and click Continue.
Select your other Mac's volume, such as "Macintosh HD", from the list, and click Cont
EDIT: Actually I realize you did follow these directions and if your drive is seen on the new Mac it should work. You're entitled to free Apple support with the new purchase, I'd give them a call.

Why are Setup Assistant and Migration Assistant forcing me to copy everything from an old mac?

Hi,
I just bought a new Mac Mini (Late 2014, ships with Yosemite) to replace a defunct MacBook Pro (Late 2008, last ran 10.8.5). I have a local administrative user account and some server and network data that I want to migrate from the latest Time Machine backup of the MacBook Pro to the Mini. I don't want to copy anything else to the Mini. Neither Setup Assistant nor Migration Assistant will let me deselect anything though. All the check boxes are greyed out. Clicking on them does not uncheck them. This forces me to copy everything from the Time Machine backup to the Mini. Then the Mini won't restart. It won't even boot into safe mode. It just gets stuck in a reboot-loop until I enter recovery mode, wipe the system drive, and reinstall Yosemite. Does anyone know why those check boxes are greyed out and how to fix them. Thanks in advance for any help.

Since it's a new machine, contact Apple's Support and let them deal with it.
27" i7 iMac (Mid 2011) refurb, OS X Yo (10.10.1), Mavs, ML & SL, G4 450 MP w/10.5 & 9.2.2

Cancelled migration assistant, lost files!

hi,
i set up migration assistant wirelessly between my old mac and my new macbook. when it gave the estimated time as 19 hours i cancelled it. it was only running for about half an hour however some of the files on my old mac are missing - and are no where to be found on my new one. these include 3 years worth of bookmarks and its pretty important i get these back! as i say i've look so thoroughly through my old mac and new macbook and can not find them anywhere. any help would be so appreciated,
thank you!

Peruse Best Practices and Setup new Mac. and seriously consider starting from scratch and doing it connected directly.

Does Migration Assistant require and up and running Windows machine?

Our home Windows desktop just died. The contents of the hard drive are still intact. We are getting an iMac to replace it. Can the Migration Assistant work with just the hard drive (connected via usb in an enclosure) or does it require a Windows machine running? If I need a running machine, is there any work around or, failing that, does anyone know any good programs to help migrate files? I could just copy manually, but that might take a while.
Thanks!

BillyoGump wrote:
Can the Migration Assistant work with just the hard drive (connected via usb in an enclosure)
No, you must install Windows Migration Assistant on the PC and connect it to your network (or Mac).
If I need a running machine, is there any work around
Yup.
See the Manually Migrating section towards the bottom of Switch 101: Migrate your Windows files or system to your Mac.

IPhoto 9.6 Does Not Recognize .MOV files!!! - HELP!

Hi - After updating iPhoto to 9.6 with Yosemite, iPhoto no longer recognizes .mov files and cannot import them. What can I do?!?

Try the fix posted by cghrismartinphd in this topic:
chrismartinphd
Sep 20, 2014 9:39 AM
Re: iphoto won’t import mov video
in response to léonie
I just read the thread to which léonie pointed. (Thanks!)
In System>Library>Caches, I had a file named "com.apple.xpchelper.cache". That file showed a modification date of yesterday -- I don't know what changes this file. Quite likely it was the install of 10.9.5 that I did yesterday.
Now, I was lucky enough to have a clone of my system from 3-4 days ago. I copied the older (cloned) version of this file, which itself had a modification date of about a month ago - to the working system. (I first renamed the current "com.apple.xpchelper.cache" to be safe.)
Then, I restarted ... and everything works like before! All movies play, and I can import.
I am not sure at all why this happened or why the above has fixed things for me, but it seems it has!
I am very happy to have fixed this issue without having to do a system recovery, which always has hitches here and there, and takes a decent chunk of time no matter how "backed up" you are.

Does migration assistant move files or copy them?

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