5 Reasons to Use a Wired Connection for Mac Migration

Wired transfer is much faster than Wi-Fi Migration Assistant works over Wi-Fi, but it’s painfully slow if you have years of photos, music, and apps on an old Intel Mac.

Thunderbolt cable is the fastest option Connect both Macs with a USB-C to USB-C Thunderbolt cable, or use an adapter. This gives the best speed for large transfers.

Ethernet via USB-C adapter is a solid backup If you don’t have a Thunderbolt cable, use an Ethernet cable with a USB-C adapter. It’s still far faster than Wi-Fi.

Target Disk Mode is not supported on Silicon Macs Don’t bother trying it on new Macs with Apple Silicon — it doesn’t work the same way and will waste your time.

A few hours wired beats a full day wireless Even a long wired transfer is faster and more reliable than waiting all day for Wi-Fi, especially for large data sets.