Migration from M1 to M4 does not work, but pretends to work

Question

Migration from M1 to M4 does not work, but pretends to work

I want to migrate my M1 MacBook to my new M4 MacBook.

I've already tried twice, both times unsuccessfully.

The first time I used Migration Assistant + Wi-Fi.

Everything seemed to go smoothly, but when it was finished, absolutely NOTHING had been transferred except the account name and icon.

I made a second attempt, this time using a specially set up Time Machine backup:

exactly the same thing happened again.

I don't know where to start. I don't want to have to completely reinstall the Mac, but I also don't know what is causing this error.

Does anyone have any ideas?

Posted on Sep 23, 2025 8:30 AM

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Answer 1

Ronasara

Level 6

15,495 points

Sep 23, 2025 10:32 AM in response to jakethegerm_an

First, Wi-Fi is not the best way to do the transfer. It is too slow. Next time use a wired Ethernet connection between the two computers. Finally, be sure that you have selected the groups you want to have transferred. It is important to know that you can transfer everything in a selection or nothing. It is not possible to just transfer some items in a group.

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Answer 2

Sep 23, 2025 11:55 AM in response to Ronasara

Thanks for your reply.

The second attempt was done using an external hard drive on which the TimeMachine backup is stored.

And I had selected everything. It wasn't incredibly fast (because it's an HDD), but at least connection problems shouldn't have been an issue.

It showed me that 100,000 items were being moved—none of which were there at the end.

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