“If you’ve just bought a new Mac, and you’re upgrading from an older computer, you want all of your files and data to be accessible on the new machine,” Kirk McElhearn writes for Intego’s Mac Security Blog. “But when setting up a new Mac, should you migrate or do a clean installation?”
“When you buy a new Mac, it might be a good idea to do a clean installation; starting from scratch, with a brand-new operating system, and adding the files that you need manually,” McElhearn writes. “When you do a clean installation, you let OS X run its Setup Assistant and create a new, empty user account. During the process, you enter some information, such as your Apple ID, so your iCloud account is activated, but, for the most part, your Mac will be a tabula rasa.”
“If you go this route, you then need to manually copy files from your old Mac, or from a backup. This part of the process can be time-consuming, but it can allow you to sift through your files to find what you really need, and slim down your Mac,” McElhearn writes. “I did so this year, for the first time in many years, and many Macs, and was surprised to find how much I didn’t copy… While I don’t recommend doing a clean installation for each new Mac you get, or for each OS X update, it’s a good idea to do it every few years. Just make sure to keep a backup in case there are any files you need to find that you didn’t copy over the first time around.”
Much more in the full article – recommended – here.
MacDailyNews Take: We performed clean installations of our 11-inch MacBook Air units (256GB Flash Storage, so space is at a premium) back in March and we couldn’t be happier with these units. They are easily the best portable (and most portable) Macs we’ve ever used (specs below).
Specs for MacDailyNews’ 11-inch MacBook Air (Early 2014) units:
• 1.7GHz Dual-Core Intel Core i7, Turbo Boost up to 3.3GHz
• 8GB 1600MHz LPDDR3 SDRAM
• 256GB Flash Storage