New Mac- clean install or migrate?

[craig1912]

As my old Mac is 10 years old I’m thinking there is lots of junk on there and rather than migrate from a Time Machine backup I should just set it up clean and copy over photos and docs etc (or can I get them off iCloud?
If I do that what files should I copy over?….or is a migration the easiest option?

[mikef]

I find that the biggest faff with a new install is reinstalling apps and finding all the serial numbers, activating them, etc. On the other hand if you’re going from an old Intel Mac to Apple Silicon, you may have to do that anyway (and possibly pay to upgrade a few apps)

[steveatesh]

Done that recently, went with fresh install as moving from Intel to new Apple Silicon.

Very easy process if you have your documents/photos / music etc backed up first and you're using the iCloud for keychain etc etc.

[gregs656]

I did this recently and spent an hour or so clearing out my old machine.

I think it was google chrome that was taking up something like 30gb of space. Ridiculous. I hadn’t even noticed.

[craig1912]

steveatesh said:

Done that recently, went with fresh install as moving from Intel to new Apple Silicon.

Very easy process if you have your documents/photos / music etc backed up first and you're using the iCloud for keychain etc etc.

Thanks, I’ve done that and everything seems fine, except Amazon photos won’t install although that might be an incompatibility with Ventura

[Jenny Tailor]

Time machine back should be fine.

Older apps with run on Rosita.

I can't see an issue.

[somouk]

Recently went from Intel to M1 and also opted for fresh install, didn’t take long at all with the bulk of the move being files which are in the cloud anyway.

[eeLee]

I would only do a clean install. Yes, it's annoying but yes, you can copy the app bundles and get going fairly quickly if you need to.

SWIMBO migrated to a 2019 MacBook and at times it runs dog-slow and sounds like a lawmower. This was fixed by signing her out of her Apple ID and back in, to a point.

[tog]

I always set up a new Mac from scratch. Takes longer to install everything, but it means I'm not just bringing all the crap over from the old machine to clutter up the new one too.