“I got my first Mac, an iBook, in 2002. It ran Mac OS 10.2 Jaguar. Since then, I’ve migrated my electronic life to new hardware three times and to a new OS version four times,” Iljitsch van Beijnum reports for Ars Technica. “I’m sure the Migration Assistant can assist me in moving from my MacBook running 10.6 to a new MacBook Air running 10.7 without trouble. But after almost a decade, I’m ready to make a clean break and start from scratch, only migrating my data—no applications, libraries, or the cruft that has built up in nooks and crannies of the system.”
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van Beijnum reports, “Why attempt a manual migration at this point? Four reasons: applications, settings, bloated iLife libraries, and cruft left behind in the Library folder.”
Tons more in the full article here.http://arstechnica.com/apple/guides/2011/07/making-a-clean-start-with-lion-migrating-without-assistance.ars
I always do clean installs…
thanks for sharing
Hope you have a better day!
He’s not just talking about doing a clean install. He’s talking about his user folder as well. That is, manually moving all the important files over, without getting all the junk that has built up in, say, your user Library folder or your iPhoto library. There are many GB of storage that seem to disappear over time due to all the “cruft.”
I just did this on my MBP preparing for Lion.
Holy crap was there a bunch of wasted space..
I had copies of stuff i had on my USB drive i have hooked up to my Airport extreme, and also on my iMac… And a 2nd copy on the MBP as well.
When you go through your computer like that, you find out you are not as “organized” as you think you are 🙂
That’s also exactly what I do. It’s as simple as taking an external HDD, copying over your files, and then Copying them back 🙂 It always works, and performance stays in top shape.
Good luck with that, the best 3 days spent off from work evar!
3 days to get a fresh start after 10 years? Seems like a good tradeoff to me.
Totally agree! I did the exact same thing when I got my 27″ i7 iMac.
I spent a day or two figuring out what applications I actually used, retrieving the licenses or loader discs and only put applications I actually used on the new iMac. Not all of the things I had gathered over a decade and wasn’t using anymore.
I suspect this writer when he goes to the Apple store drives in figure of eight circles that takes him from point A to point B by way of points C, D, E & F. That was one convoluted way of doing a backup and restore.
I thought Apple made it as easy as 1, 2, 3.
– back up using Time Machine.
– clean install Lion.
– restore using Time Machine.
What more is there to be messing about with?
Um, that wouldn’t work. Your Time Machine restore will restore you to Snow Leopard.
Um, actually, it would. When you install a Mac OS X on a virgin hard disk, first screen that appears (after the ‘Welcome / Wilkommen / Добро пожаловать” animation and language selection) is the migration selection, where you are asked if you wish to migrate you user and application data from a Time Machine backup or another Mac. If you choose Time Machine, the only stuff that will be migrated (restored) will be your user data and your applications. The system will be whichever you have just installed.
Right, but he’s not talking about that. Migration Assistant will move over a bunch of stuff he doesn’t want, like all of the old preference files that build up in the user Library folder over years of use. He also gave an example of a 20GB discrepancy between what iPhoto said was the size of his photo library, and his actual iPhoto library folder. Migration assistant will move all of that “cruft” over.
What the hell is “cruft”?
I think it mostly means old, unused files somehow associated with Microsoft software. Digital detritus, if you will. It is sometimes called Microcruft.
MicroCruft!
LOL
I love it.
I just looked up Cruft…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruft
“Cruft is jargon for computer software or hardware that is of poor quality. ”
Yep that fits MS. LOL
Laura’s cousin?
Nice!
Cruft Croft… I like.
Cruft is the hard, crusty stuff in your belly button that’s down underneath the lint. Disgusting, ain’t it.
Hope he has fun with that. Been awhile since I’ve used the Migration Assistant, but can’t you pick and choose the apps you want to move over?
Plus, there’s so much room on hard drives these days that a couple of MB of old, unused files in your Library can’t affect you that much.
Last time I used it, you couldn’t. You had a choice between all apps and no apps.
He’s right, spot on. When I migrated from Leopard to Snow Leopard, I had poor graphics performance, and my Safari wouldnt download (anything!). Apple themselves had me do a clean install: it cured all those issues, I had a snappy device, and was also fully able to load my specific files i wanted to from my previous time machine back up. Since OS upgrades happen 1.5/2 yrs, its not that bad, and only takes about 3 hrs.
also: its a great opportunity to organize. Organization of files is really important to enhancing computer speed when it comes to the large hard drives we have these days.
Moved to a new machine at work with a procedure my friend taught me. Boot the old machine into target disk mode. Copy your home directory over into the /Users directory. Create a new account on the new machine with the same username (you can even change user names as long as the userid and home directory match). When you create the account the OS will ask if you want to use the existing home directory – say yes. Do a clean install of your apps and you keep your data while getting rid of obsolete apps, preference files, etc.
That will still leave all the user preferences (located in user directories) from the old machine that you moved over to the new one.
The only completely clean, lean and pure migration of nothing but user files would be to do a clean install, reinstall applications one by one and copy files, pictures, videos, music one by one (or folder by folder). That is about the only method that guarantees that no orphaned preference file is moved, and no obsolete version setting makes its way onto the new machine.
You have to be careful about permissions doing it that way, though. My method for a “clean” install of OS and apps is to:
1) BACK UP YOUR HOME FOLDER AND ANY OTHER FILES YOU NEED TO KEEP to an external HD, server, etc.
2) format drive and install the OS
3) create a new user (any name – a good time to change the user name if you want)
3) copy old home folder to desktop of new user (you must do this as the new user so the permissions are set properly on all files and folders)
4) enable the root user (this is fine as long as you use a STRONG password and/or disable the root user after the migration)
5) log out as the “regular” user and log in as root
6) move old home folder copied in step 3 to root’s desktop
7) delete home folder of new “regular” user
8) move old home folder to the /Users folder, and MAKE SURE to name it the same as the home folder of the “regular” user (which was deleted in step 7)
9) log out as root and log back in as the new user
10) If you have missing app icons in your Dock, they will get “fixed” when you reinstall the app it points to, or you can get rid of them and clean your Dock up.
If done properly, this will work every time. Have some old files lingering in your home folder that you want to get rid of? Go ahead and get rid of them, you’ve got a backup (from step 1) in case you need to get a file back. I usually don’t worry about preference files, though, ’cause they’re tiny and if an app has a problem either using (and converting if necessary) or ignoring an old preference file, THEN you can delete it.
This is one of those things I’d recommend everyone does at least once as it teaches you a LOT about the lower level workings which will help you when troubleshooting in the future.
However, for most folks, I just say use migration assistant. If they wanted to go through a long extensive migration process, they’d have stuck with windows. 😉
I go one step further and reinitialize my startup drive while I’m at it. It takes a good part of the day to reinstall my apps and copy all my personal data by hand; but one can do other things while apps are installing and big chunks of data are being copied. Besides freeing up disk space, this process generally improves overall performance.
Personally, I don’t generally reinstall all my apps and utilities. Rather, I install only my most-used apps and add others on an as-needed basis. What I end up with is generally far fewer apps than I had accumulated since the last time I reinstalled everything.
It’s always a good idea to do a low level reformat of your hard drive from time to time, or at least scan the hell out of it for bad sectors on a regular basis.
Or you can do what I’m going to do: Buy a new, faster hard drive for my Mac and toss the old one into an external enclosure to use for backups. 🙂