Merging different accounts with Migration Assistant

My account on my mac is "myname" but the time machine backup is under account name "myname_bkp". Can I migrate from myname_bkp on TM to myname on the mac directly? Or do I have to creat an account myname_bkp on the mac, then manually transfer to myname, then manually delete myname_bkp?
tm

Apparently, MA will let you migrate into a different account name only if it encounters the same account name on both ends. So here is how I finally did this:
Create account myname_bkp on the Mac where you want to migrate to.
Migration Assistant will notice that myname_bkp exists both on TM and on the Mac and will ask whether you want to migrate into the existing account or create a new one. If you chose new account, MA will let you create a new used myname and will copy myname_bkpinto myname.
After the migration is done, delete myname_bkp from the Mac.
tm

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How do i merge my user accounts after migration assistant

Hello,
How do I merge my user accounts after migration assistant from a time machine back up?

I wonder how to plan what account and rights to have where?
I had my old original account on my iMac, and then I "migrated" the data to a user account, in order to have some advantages with that setup. So everything worked approximately ok in this setup.
And yesterday, I tried migrating to a new Mac, and suddenly I get aware of the fact that the rights on these two earlier accounts were important.
And especially, after doing the migration to the new machine twice, until I got the Mail working, I am now totaly bewildered what solution to aim for? How to merge the two migrated admin accounts - keeping the original admin account is also important, since my file system har special rights for that one.
Could anyone give me more ideas about how to proceed? I think I have working Mail on one of the two migrated account (with 100 000 mails or so, it seems so...). The other account is the one I would like to have.
Also I think I want to use a normal user account, not an admin account for my daily use. And I have to see if things still work if I turn off the admin rights...
Thankful for any advice!
/groundliner

HT4796 Help needed with Migration Assistant, can't find files?

I've just purchased my first Mac (macbook Pro 15in) so please be kind, I'm so clueless it's ridiculous! Using migration assistant I've transfered aprox 100GB of files from my PC which seemed to take about 2seconds, but have no idea where they are or how to access them. The files were mostly music but when I opened itunes there is nothing in my library. The rest of the stuff was pics, docs, email accounts but none of that seems to be there either.. From the few articles I've read I seem to have somehow created another user account which is labeled Guest User/Sharing only, but I can't seem to log in as that user to find the files.. What have I done?! HELP!!

Congratulations!
... Using migration assistant I've transfered aprox 100GB of files from my PC which seemed to take about 2seconds, but have no idea where they are or how to access them.
It sounds as though Migration Assistant did not do a thing. With Migration Assistant, 100 GB will take time, no matter how the two computers communicate it will be at least an hour. Probably more. I recommend you connect them both to a wired network and make sure the PC is really using it. Wireless will take a lot longer.
I suggest you read the following step by step. On your Windows PC, you will need to download Migration Assistant. That link and everything else you need to know is in this document: OS X Lion: About Windows Migration Assistant. Follow its instructions to the letter.
The "guest" user is a feature of OS X and will not contain your files. Don't concern yourself with it.

Transfer emails with migration assistant.

My boss asked me to transfer all his old email from old macpro to his new one. Do i have to set up his email account on iMal first before i transfer them with migration assistant? Or will that set up autmatically while transfering?

On the old Mac. User/Library/Mail. Copy the folder to the new Mac to the desktop. Then on the new Mac from the Finder menu hold down the option key and click on Go. Select Library. Drag the Mail folder from the Library to the trash (don't empty). drag the Mail folder from the old Mac into the Library. Now launch Mail and check to see that all the email is there. If all is well empty the trash.

Can I sync my BookPro to my iMac with migration assistant?

I recently had to reformat my iMac, and reinstall Leopard.
Then, i tried to sync it to my BookPro with setup assistant. I couldn't figure out why the computers wouldn't connect over my TimeCapsule network, os I gave up in hopes of using Migration Assistant.
All was going well for 1 hour, until the transfer stalled, and I cancelled it. The error message said something to effect of a lost connection.
I have made sure that the firewall on both computers allow all connections. However, I declined transferring the user account, but agreed to transferring all other apps, file, sand preferences. (Both computers have the same Admin name).
Is it necessary to transfer the Admin name? Can't I just sync everything to the other computer's Admin account?

Migration Assistant is not a sync tool. If you need to sync your two Macs then use a proper backup utility such as Carbon Copy Cloner or SilverKeeper or Synk, for example - VersionTracker or MacUpdate.
Have both computers on your network and enable File Sharing - select Mac Help from the Finder's Help menu and search for "file sharing." Or connect the two using Target Disk Mode.
Neither Migration Assistant or the Setup Assistant are intended to be used as backup or sync tools. They are intended to facilitate moving an existing user account from an older computer to a new one. Migration Assistant can also be used to restore a system backed up using Time Machine. Time Machine is also just a backup tool, not a sync tool.

Insufficient space for importing TM backup with migration assistant

First of all this is not for my main Mountain Lion installation on my Mac Pro, it is on a VM Ware Fusion virtual Mountain Lion installation that is running on my Mac Pro also running Mountain Lion. So this is really more a question dealing with VM Ware Fusion (or Parallels since I have the same issue with that as well) vs. a problem with Mountain Lion. Confused yet? I sure am....
I am trying to import a time machine backup of my previous Snow Leopard drive into my virtual machine. I did not want to import this into my new drive because I am starting fresh and trying to clean up and Snow Leopard had 10 years worth of crus I am trying to get rid of, but I would still like to have my old SL drive running within VM Ware to help with the transition. I have a Mac Pro with a dual monitor set up so I want it to run in my second monitor and very slowly over the next few weeks get all the files I want and need instead of just importing a bunch of useless crap.
Anyway, here is the problem I am having and cannot seem to get past this hurdle. When I open migration assistant inside VM Ware ML and choose my time machine backup of snow leopard everything works fine until it finishes calculating the size. I deselected all the files and folder I possibly can which leaves 209GB. Even with every single folder deselcted it still give an insufficient storage error I have already resized the VMware drive to 400GB which is more than enough. In my real machine under Finder>Get Info it shows it as 400GB, but within the virtual machine it is only showing the Mac HD to be 40GB which won't allow migration assistant to import the backup due to insuffient storage.
I have a Mac Pro with tons of disk space so I have plenty of free space to allocate but I have tried everything I can think of but came up blank. Sorry if my explanation was overly verbose or confusing but I wanted to give as much detail as possible. Haven't really fiddled with the settings in VM Ware in a while so I must be missing something.
So, how do you import files showing as larger than 40GB from a time machine backup with migration assistant without getting an error that there is not enough remaining space? And again, I have already resized the disk to 400GB that shows as 400GB on my real machine but only as 40GB inside the VM Ware Mac HD. I also have Parallels if that is easier to do what I am trying to accomplish.

I just solved the problem! And this is actually a pretty big deal because experts at the VM Ware Fusion website and many other forums told me it was impossible.
So here is the guide to running Mountain Lion in VM Ware Fusion or Parallels with a partition larger than 40GB and allows you to import an old user account from Tiger, Snow Leopard, Lion, etc..
1) Make sure to shut down Mountain Lion in VM
2) Under VM settings expand hard drive to whatever size you like
3) You will need either a disk image or an actual DVD of mountain lion, mount that in your VM and choose it as start up. After rebooting open disk utility and partition Mac HD. Instead of only showing the 40GB limit it shold now show the size you created from step 2. Close disk utility and install Mountain Lion as normal. Reboot and unmount disk image.
4) You now have a virtual Mountain Lion with whatever hard disk size you chose.
5) Open migration assistant and do your time machine back up as normal from previous systems.
The reason you might want to do this are many. In my case I wanted to have my old Snow Leopard user account open and running on my second monitor since I just did a fresh install on my Mac Pro. It is easy to import audio, photos, videos but there was a lot of other things I want to take my time bringinging over. There are also many cases where I needed to open up an app and view settings. Now I have my old machine essentially running at the same time as my new install side by side which is fantastic.

My iPhone is merging different contacts with the same firstname into one contact. How can i resolve this.

My Bosses iPhone is merging different contacts with the same firstname into one contact. How can i resolve this? He seems very disturbed and thinks i don't know what i'm doing. I've set up all his devices to sync across and now its messed up on his iPad, and two iPhones.
E.G Contacts with firstname 'Adams' and different numbers are synced into one account.
Now i have no clue how many contacts are this way cos he has a huge number of contacts (he's the ceo).
Please i need a suggestion on how to fix this.
Thanks for the help.

Janie Mac wrote:
Cannot find settings to then go to general then about.
How do I edit the device in iTunes?
Double-click on the name.
My screen shot shows both devices because I sync wirelessly. Right now I can change the iPod name but not the iPad name because the iPod is idle while the iPad is syncing. In another minute or two, I'll be able to change the iPad name.

HT204053 i RECENTLY PURCHASED ANOTHER IPHONE. MY INTERNET IS NOT WORKING. I JUST CREATED AN APPLE ID. WHAT'S NEXT? I NOW HAVE TWO DIFFERENT ACCOUNTS WITH DIFFERENT USER NAMES. HOW CAN I USE ONLY ONE ACCOUNT FOR ITUNES, ICLOUD APPLE ID ETC???

I RECENTLY PURCHASED ANOTHER IPHONE. MY INTERNET IS NOT WORKING. I JUST CREATED AN APPLE ID. WHAT'S NEXT? I NOW HAVE TWO DIFFERENT ACCOUNTS WITH DIFFERENT USER NAMES. HOW CAN I USE ONLY ONE ACCOUNT FOR ITUNES, ICLOUD APPLE ID ETC???

Welcome to the Apple community.
iTunes and iCloud and different accounts, you will need to delete both accounts from your device before adding the new details in their place.
For iCloud go to settings > iCloud, scroll down and hit the delete button. You can then sign back in using your correct details. For iTunes go to settings >store, tap your account ID and then sign out, you can then sign back in using your correct Apple ID.

I am having problems with migration assistant (windows pc to Mac 2011) When I get to the 'Quit other applications' box and click continue, nothing happens. There are no other apps running - any ideas, please?

I am having probems with migration assistant. Trying to transfer data from a windows laptop to iMac 2011. It was working fine when I did the set-up yesterday, but it was going to take hours to transfer some videos so I quit the process with the intention of doing it again at a later stage. However today I find that everytime I get to the 'Quit other applications' box on the Mac and click 'continue', nothing happens. Have checked mission control and confirmed no other apps running. Tried several times with the same result every time. Migration Assistant running on my laptop with the 'Waiting for mac to connect' box displayed. Mac is connected to wi-fi OK as able to use Safari and access internet. Any ideas, please?

Thanks for your suggestions. Have managed to get Migration Assistant working but now have a new problem, i.e. where does it save the transferred files?!! Searched a few forums and it seems it saves it under your old username, or suchlike. Anyway I tried logging on as a new user using my old user name but there were only a handful of files there, couldn't locate the majority of stuff from my old laptop. Anyway I don't intend to go through any more hoops with MA - will just save the important stuff to an external drive and transfer it that way. Not impressed with MA at all. I thought it was supposed to be a user-friendly tool to simplify the transfer from pc to Mac - not my experience, I'm afraid!

I have two different accounts with I-tunes and I want to link both purchases for my music to one account. How can I do this?

I have two different accounts with I-tunes and I want to link both purchases for my music to one account. How can I do this?

You are going to need to change the email address you use with your old ID. Once you have got access to your old account you will then log into both accounts at the same time on your Mac and transfer your data to a single account. We can do this later, but need you to get access to your old account first.
My Apple ID

Backup will not restore with migration assistant.

This is long and complicated but here goes. Had a 10.5 machine PPC that was backing up to a time capsule. IMac blew out PS so was toast. Took it home and took another iMac 10.5 machine that had a bad HD. Put new HD into that machine and installed 10.6 and then ran migration assistandt from the old iMac HD drive from the unit with the bad PS. The restored iMac with the new HD was a perfect close of the older iMac and everything was perfect. Took to customer site and they were happy. Time machine started backing up again to the same time capsule as before. It created a new backup image on the time capsule with the EXACT SAME NAME as the older iMac had. I did not know that until a year later when the new hard drive in the rebuilt iMac failed. I took a newer iMac of the Intel variety with 10.7 on it to the customer site. I told migration assistant to restore from the time capsule users and data file. I di not want it to restgore programs since I knew the ones on the newer iMac where newer versions and probably not compatible. Restore seemed to go just fine. Users were all there and desktop looked the same as the older iMac with the dead hard drive. I had to install a printer driver but all appeared okay. Customer called the day later and said all files for pages and numbers and address book appeared a year old at the newest. See where this is going.
I went to the site and started looking at the backup files on the time capsule drive. Taht is when I noticed that two exact backup named files existed. So I started drilling down through them ( Not using time machine casues it only had 1 day history on it ) and looked at the dates of the files. Sure enough, one of the backup images had files that had all ended a year ago when the original iMac blew out the PS and the other backup file with an identical name had files much more current in the current month and year. Simple I said to myself. I just happended to pick the older file to restore from. So I renamed the older file so I could not get them confused. Double checked that the one with the current files was named correctly. Went to migration assistant again and ran it again. Completed just fine but sill no file less than a year old. NOw I am really puzzled so I tried a test of one simple file to see if I was wrong in my assumptions. The address book file was one of the files that was a year old. I went to the time caplsule and drilled down to the exact file that address book makes. I had already thrown the corresponding file away on the new machine so I copied the file from the exact same location on the time capslue back up to the same location on the new machine. I then fired up address book on the new machine and the address book worked perfectly with the new and updated and current records.
So now I am sure that the drive image that I have been playing with on the time capsule has the up to date backups. But migtration assistant will not move them to the new machine. It will take a very long time to move every pages and numbers files scattered around in various folders to do this manually. What is wrong with migration assistant that it will not work correctly.

I am not asking if there is anything on the card. I'm not worried about the backup or recovering all of my information. I'm asking if setting up the replacement phone as NEW will change anything at all when I use the OLD sim card.

What's the fastest way to transfer files with Migration Assistant?

I am trying to transfer everything from an iMac 21.5 over Ethernet with Migration Assistant and it is 20+ Hours estimated transfer time. Once I strt can I switch to Thunderbolt? Everything I've read states this is the fastest means.
Thanks!

Thanks. Through further investigation my old iMac does not have a Thunderbolt port so that's out of the question. I think it was going over wifi instead of Ethernet so I disabled my router and am now migrating from Time Machine via USB 2.0. Estimated around 3+ hours now.
Any idea how to get my old iMac out of migration mode?

Pb with migration assistant

Hello,
I try to install a new Macbook Pro with Migration Assistant.
I connect the Ethernet cable between macbook pro Lion (Source) and macbook pro Lion (Target) and i start.
When i arrived on the screen Transfer Information to this Mac, i select "From another Mac" and i launch Migration assistant in the source.
The target view the source but source can't view target.
I have always "looking for another computer" and nothing.
Thanks for your help.

Hi,
Sorry for my mistake with Pb, I'm frenchman and it's the first time I write a post..And sorry if my english is not correct... If you understand me...it's perfect
So, in the Pondini's Setup New Mac,(thank you very munch for that) he wrote :
Usually, the best way is to use Setup Assistant, when you first start up your new Mac. It will set the new Mac up just like the old one: all configuration, settings, users and data, and all applications (except newer versions already installed).
I make that, but nothing.
So I select "Do not transfer the know", and when I created the user, I do not choose the same as the source, otherwise there are a problem with migration assistant. and after, I used Migration Assistant to install all applications, configurations...But I think it isn't normal.
Today, i will try to install a new Mac with Time Machine.
Thanks for your help

I recently purchased a MacBook Pro, I did not transfer files from my old pc with migration assistant when I set up the MacBook. A few days later I did the transfer, now my Itunes library and everything else from my old pc is under a different user account

I've already setup the original user account and do not want to do it again, how do I merge the two user accounts into one so all of my stuff is under one user account?

They are the same Itunes account (mine), but since I transferred the 'user account' with my Itunes library and other files from old pc to my new MacBook, I now have two 'user accounts' on my MacBook. The original I setup when I got the MacBook and the one I transferred from my pc. I've already went thru most of my photos in Iphoto and named all the faces along with general setup of how I want all my settings on my MacBook under the first user account, I don't want to start over and do it all again with the transferred user account, I just want to move my Itunes library I transferred over to my original user account on my MacBook. Does this make any sense? lol

I ended with two Administrator accounts after migration assistant

I had to install Leopard again after a failure drive and I use the migration assistant to move all my stuff and now I'm confused because I have two admin accounts. I rename the other one when (following the directions) and I tough I was going to have all my iTunes stuff and pictures and all my contacts in the Address Book, my calendars from iCal, etc on the new account. How can I transfer all this from the old account to the new one? Do I have to keep the two accounts? What if I delete the new one?
As you can see, I'm very confused.
Thank you in advance

Migration Assistant cannot overwrite an existing account with another having the same short name. MA gave you the option of changing the name of the account your were migrating or cancel the process. What you should have done was to cancel the process, reinstall OS X, and this time use a different short name for the initial admin account. So, here's what you can do:
Macworld | Changing the short username in Leopard. Be sure to read through the article before proceeding.

Merging different accounts with Migration Assistant

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