Hi, I have an old iMac late 2014 intel i5 that I wish to move everything to a new M4 Mac. I would like to do this by cable not Wi-Fi. I’m sure the old Mac has thunderbolt but which spec I don’t know. What would be the best cable to buy for the transfer please. Pic of old Mac ports.
iMac 27″, macOS 11.7
Your old i5 iMac has two Thunderbolt 2 ports (the ones with the lightning bolt icon above them). To use that for migrating your data you will need an Apple Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) to Thunderbolt 2 adapter plus a Thunderbolt 2 cable like this one. If you do this, make sure it's a Thunderbolt 2-Thunderbolt 2 cable, not a miniDisplayPort cable (the connectors are the same).
The adapter plugs into your M4 iMac, the Thunderbolt cable goes from the adapter to your old iMac.
Thunderbolt will be the fastest connection but it is also possible to do the migration using either of the following:
For more information see Transfer to a new Mac with Migration Assistant - Apple Support
Your old i5 iMac has two Thunderbolt 2 ports (the ones with the lightning bolt icon above them). To use that for migrating your data you will need an Apple Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) to Thunderbolt 2 adapter plus a Thunderbolt 2 cable like this one. If you do this, make sure it's a Thunderbolt 2-Thunderbolt 2 cable, not a miniDisplayPort cable (the connectors are the same).
The adapter plugs into your M4 iMac, the Thunderbolt cable goes from the adapter to your old iMac.
Thunderbolt will be the fastest connection but it is also possible to do the migration using either of the following:
For more information see Transfer to a new Mac with Migration Assistant - Apple Support
Migrating is dead simple to do, simply follow the steps in Setup Assistant and Migration Assistant. No Time Machine backup, you can also use a bootable clone backup. If you don't have either then create one for the old machine and then use this method. If you ignore, there is a high chance you will have problems.
The best way to do this would be to migrate the data from your Time Machine backup drive instead of directly from the old Mac.
You do use Time Machine to backup, right?
Unfortunately no, you could say I’m a little ancient when it comes to this sort of thing. I guess now looking at the Apple support also, is to do this first. I shall endeavour to do this then use that. Thank you for the reply.
Probably the preferred way for me as there’s not that much to move. Also I haven’t backed up using Time Machine for same reason. Thank you.
Thank you, I will.
Migrating data from old iMac to new m4 imac
