3 Things to Know About Using Migration Assistant With a Thunderbolt Cable

Use a Thunderbolt or USB-C cable for the fastest transfer Both Macs need to be on the same Wi-Fi or connected via Thunderbolt (or USB-C to USB-C) and running macOS Monterey or later. This method is the fastest and most reliable way to transfer everything, including apps, files, settings, and wallpaper.

Wi-Fi and Time Machine are slower alternatives If you don’t have a cable, you can transfer over Wi-Fi, but it will be slow with a lot of data. Alternatively, pull a Time Machine backup from your old Mac to an external drive, then restore from that drive on the new Mac.

Some old Intel apps won’t run on Apple Silicon Migration Assistant will still copy them, but they’ll need an update or Rosetta 2 to work. You can install Rosetta automatically when you open the app for the first time.