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BikerPaul Author

Level 1

5 points

Restoring to a different machine

I have a Time Machine backup from my old mid-2012 MacBook Pro running Mojave. Can I Restore this to my brand new (mid 2020) MacBook Pro running Catalina? I've read some things that makes me think this may not be as simple as doing a standard TimeMachine Restore from the new machine.

Bonus question- Old machine was running MS Office 2011. I'll be loading MS Office 2019 on the new machine. Does it make a difference which one (TM backup or Office 2019) I do first?

MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 10.14

Posted on Jul 10, 2020 10:45 PM

Top-ranking reply

t.moe

Level 4

1,275 points

Posted on Jul 10, 2020 11:36 PM

You might want to use Migration Assistant. See https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204350. It will use a Time Machine backup as a source.

If you choose to transfer programs, you’d want to install Office after - as you’re probably aware, Office 2011 won’t run on Catalina since it is 32-bit software.

If you don’t have many applications installed it might be best to just transfer the data and install the apps fresh.

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Restoring to a different machine

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