Move to a new Mac
Clone your Mac
Make a copy of everything on your Mac before you start — here’s how
THISIS PARAMOUNT. If you want to make a perfect copy of your old Mac on your new one, the best option is to clone it. That means copying some or all of your existing Mac to a fast external disk or SSD and then copying the clone to the new computer.
There are three key apps that can help you to do that: Apple’s Time Machine and the third–party apps SuperDuper! and Carbon Copy Cloner. Each can copy your entire system to an external drive, then transfer that copied data to your new Mac. SuperDuper! (shirtpocket.com) and Carbon Copy Cloner (bombich.com) are paid apps, but they have trial versions you can use to do a simple clone. As they’re good backup apps too, it’s likely you’ll want to buy them to keep using them or access their advanced features.