How to transfer all settings to new computer

[Bryce]

Hello,

I just bought a new Mac and I was wondering, without using migration assistant, to transfer all the affinity settings, presets, etc. from the old computer the new one. What's the best way?

 

thanks!

[Fixx]

Best way would be to use migration assistant.

Otherwise /Users/user/Library/Application Support/Affinity Appname/user has probably most of the data you want. 

[R C-R]

3 hours ago, Fixx said:

Otherwise /Users/user/Library/Application Support/Affinity Appname/user has probably most of the data you want. 

The path to the folder you want to copy to the new computer will be different from the above if you bought your Affinity app(s) from the Mac App Store instead of the Affinity Store. So for example, for Affinity Designer the path to the folder will be

/Users/<username>/Library/Containers/com.seriflabs.affinitydesigner/Data/Library/Application Support/user

The user/Library folder is hidden by default. You can make it always visible by opening your home folder (the one with a house icon) in Finder, & from the View menu selecting "Show View Options" or using the keyboard shortcut CMD +J. At the bottom of the view options window tick "Show Library Folder." Alternately, if you do not want it always visible you can access it from the Finder "Go" menu if you hold down the alt/option key.

 

[h_d]

Also worth remembering that just transferring the com.seriflabs Application Support files won't necessarily transfer application preferences; application saved states; Finder prefs for opening files (eg I have mine set to open .jpgs and .tiffs with Affinity Photo, default is Preview); or system Security and Privacy settings that relate to the apps:

 

 

These are transferred by Migration Assistant along with your other user settings. Of course you can  set them all up again when prompted or needed,  but it's a bit of a trade-off against the undoubted glacial progress of Migration Assistant.

[R C-R]

55 minutes ago, h_d said:

These are transferred by Migration Assistant along with your other user settings. Of course you can  set them all up again when prompted or needed,  but it's a bit of a trade-off against the undoubted glacial progress of Migration Assistant.

Even if Migration Assistant is glacially slow, because it transfers everything from the older Mac that is compatible with the new one but does not transfer anything that is not, it can save time in the long run vs. manually finding, selecting, & transferring all the needed items piecemeal.

After all, just finding everything needed can involve a lot of digging around in obscure folders & sometimes hours of research just to learn where to look. Missing something important can mean trying to figure out what to replace & what to leave as is. Get that wrong & it could be days before you realize things are not quite right & it is possible that in trying to fix it you end up creating new issues that have to be sorted out.

[Bryce]

I would gladly use migration assistant but recently I can never get it to complete. It will fly along when connected TB to TB and about done it will just stay and never finish. So recently I found it just easier to copy my stuff over. The issue now is making sure all of my Acrobat Plugins work in Catalina.