Advice on upgrading the Affinity Suite V2 from an intel iMac to an M4 laptop

[Danod53]

Hi All,

This seems like a simple question, but the really tough part is how do people whom are doing this type of upgrade, maintain their various Assets, Brushes and other items across the suite. I know that I can use Migration Assistant, but if I can avoid it, I would like to build the new computer from scratch as it were.

Any thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated.

[MikeTO]

I just set up a new Mac manually. I don't use assets and brushes so I didn't have content to import but I had to spend a long time setting up all three apps so here are a few other things you'll need to do if you want to do it manually, too. There may be more but this is off the top of my head.

• Studios - set them up manually and then save a preset
• Shortcuts - save from your old computer and then load the shortcut files on the new computer
• Settings - go through each pane and customize the apps manually - this is rather tedious, especially if you use a variation of English other than US or UK in which case you'll have to add any default AutoCorrect, Abbreviations, and Title Case exceptions manually since there are no defaults outside of US and UK
• Text styles - import your defaults if you changed them
• Tools and Toolbar - customize them again if you've customized them
• Custom dictionary - this isn't Affinity specific, but you'll lose your custom dictionary if you don't use the migration assistant and will have to copy it over manually from ~/Library/Group Containers/group.com.apple.AppleSpell/Library/Spelling/ to the same folder on your new computer. Restart your Mac after installing it.

You will also lose all of your presets for things like cross-reference formats, preflight, snapping, etc., so be prepared to recreate those as you come across them.

[Danod53]

Hi MikeTO,

Thanks very much for your thoughts on this. I realize that I will have to perform various manual actions. The suite has a number of export functions for each of the areas such as assets, brushes etc. I will look for the studio export option if there is one. I will have both computers running for some days to get everthing I want off of the old one.

Dan

[Ldina]

@Danod53 If doing a new installation on my M4, and transferring ALL data to the new M4 (plus your Affinity Apps and settings), here's a link to a post I started on that subject. This was the whole enchilada, not just Affinity. If this doesn't answer to your question, just ignore.

James Ritson has a video somewhere that talks about backing up ALL affinity settings for transfer to a new device. You'd have to search for it, either on this forum (Tutorials, either v1 or v2), or YouTube. BTW, I used Apple Migration Assistant and it worked great to load all my Intel Mac settings and data to my new M4. 

 

[Danod53]

Thanks for the info - I will check your link out.

[Ldina]

13 minutes ago, Danod53 said:

Thanks for the info

I found the video about backup up ALL Affinity Resources. It's in this video at the 4:05 minute time mark. This allows you to save you settings and bring them back into your new install. I think you may also need to individually backup things like Assets, Macros, Styles, etc also. 

 

[Danod53]

Thanks - Very Helpful

 

Dan