[Veltliner]

From my G5 iMac I am moving again, after reinstalling OS X on my new white 24" intel Mac.

I got this one piece of info from Applecare (one of the higher level specialists you get moved to, when the basic iMac specialist doesn't know the answer): never move the desktop folder, just move the content over to the new Mac.

So I won't move the whole Home Folder in one piece, but folder by folder: Library, Pictures, Music, Movies, Documents.

And the desktop content only.

Any more pitfalls than the one with the desktop folder?

[Chuckit]

I've never heard of that. I assume it has to do with different desktop settings, but still, it's kind of strange.

If you're manually dragging rather than just using Migration Assistant, one thing to be careful of is to disconnect the old computer before you open Mail, because Mail is clever enough to find the mailboxes on the original computer and use those. After it's correctly identified that you want it to use the mailbox files on your new computer, you're free to have whatever you'd like connected.

[Veltliner]

Thanks for the tip, Chuckit.

[Simon]

As long as no apps are running (see Chuckit's example above) you can basically move any folder in ~/. The one thing to take care of is permissions and in the case of older apps resource forks.

If you copy stuff over from an remote/external volume, you'll want to make sure permissions are right, like
sudo chown -R myName:myGroup /Users/myName/newStuff

If you do that you can absolutely move ~/Desktop/ too. There's no problem with that.

If you use older Mac apps their files can make use of resource forks. If you copy stuff in the Finder, they'll come over just fine. If you're doing it on the CLI, you'll want to use ditto instead of cp. For example
ditto -rsrcFork /Volumes/Backup/foo.bar ~/
to copy the data and resource forks of the file foo.bar. Fortunately most modern Mac apps don't rely on resource forks and hence a simple cp will take care of everything.

[Art Vandelay]

You do not want to replace the Desktop folder while the Finder is running. It's a live folder. Weird things happen when you mess with the Desktop folder when logged in.

Starting with Tiger, all the standard CLI file manipulation tools support resource forks. No need to use ditto anymore for dual forked files.

In addition, you can not replace any of the standard Home folders via the Finder in Leopard. They are all considered system folders. You will need to move the content over instead.

[Veltliner]

Originally Posted by Simon 

As long as no apps are running (see Chuckit's example above) you can basically move any folder in ~/. The one thing to take care of is permissions and in the case of older apps resource forks.

If you copy stuff over from an remote/external volume, you'll want to make sure permissions are right, like
sudo chown -R myName:myGroup /Users/myName/newStuff

If you do that you can absolutely move ~/Desktop/ too. There's no problem with that.

If you use older Mac apps their files can make use of resource forks. If you copy stuff in the Finder, they'll come over just fine. If you're doing it on the CLI, you'll want to use ditto instead of cp. For example
ditto -rsrcFork /Volumes/Backup/foo.bar ~/
to copy the data and resource forks of the file foo.bar. Fortunately most modern Mac apps don't rely on resource forks and hence a simple cp will take care of everything.

As for PPC apps, I am actually only planning to take office 2004 with me, and if something goes wrong, I will just throw it away, as I will get the intel version of word in 08.

What do you mean by "CLI" and "cp"?

And the permissions folder you are talking about, I couldn't locate it in any of the home folders...

So, is there any other stuff I should copy over? Any, that is NOT in the home folder (except office 2004)?

[AKcrab]

Originally Posted by Veltliner 

What do you mean by "CLI" and "cp"?

Command Line Interface. (The terminal)
cp = copy

[Veltliner]

Oh, I never went near the terminal so far ( not out of fear of being terminated, I swear).

I guess I'll do it by simply using drag and drop. After all, isn't the terminal compared to doing it the visualized way like writing HTML code vs. using a WYSIWYG editor like Dreamweaver?

[Chuckit]

That's an interesting comparison. You can do much cooler stuff writing your own site rather than having Dreamweaver generate it for you.

[Veltliner]

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

That's an interesting comparison. You can do much cooler stuff writing your own site rather than having Dreamweaver generate it for you.

If you write XHTML fluently, I suppose.

[Veltliner]

I found the following interesting list on what items to copy on a discussion on apple.com.

It is kind of minimalistic, not even copying the whole home library folder, and nothing outside the home folder, except an app.

Originally Posted by "Kappy at APPLE.COM 

Basically the instructions you should follow are:

1. Backup your data first. This is vitally important in case you make a mistake or there's some other problem.

2. Connect a Firewire cable between your old Mac and your new Intel Mac.

3. Startup your old Mac in Target Disk Mode.

4. Startup your new Mac for the first time, go through the setup and registration screens, but do NOT migrate data over. Get to your desktop on the new Mac without migrating any new data over.

4. Copy the following items from your old Mac to the new Mac:

In your /Home/ folder: Documents, Movies, Music, Pictures, and Sites folders.

In your /Home/Library/ folder:

/Home/Library/Application Support/AddressBook (copy the whole folder)
/Home/Library/Application Support/iCal (copy the whole folder)

Also in /Home/Library/Application Support (copy whatever else you need including folders for any third-party applications)

/Home/Library/Keychains (copy the whole folder)
/Home/Library/Mail (copy the whole folder)
/Home/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist (* This is a very important file which contains all email account settings and general mail preferences.)
/Home/Library/Preferences/ copy any preferences needed for third-party applications

/Home /Library/iTunes (copy the whole folder)
/Home /Library/Safari (copy the whole folder)

If you want cookies:

/Home/Library/Cookies/Cookies.plist
/Home/Library/Application Support/WebFoundation/HTTPCookies.plist

For Entourage users:

Entourage is in /Home/Documents/Microsoft User Data
Also in /Home/Library/Preferences/Microsoft

Credit goes to another forum user for this information.

If you need to transfer data for other applications please ask the vendor or ask in the Discussions where specific applications store their data.

5. Once you have transferred what you need restart the new Mac and test to make sure the contents are there for each of the applications.