You can also use Target Disk Mode on an old Mac to set up a new Mac with Migration Assistant, repair its drive using Disk Utility, or possibly even boot another Mac with it.

Speed: Because Target Disk Mode on modern Macs relies on a Thunderbolt connection, and you’re connecting one Mac directly to another, you’ll get the fastest transfer speeds in the fewest steps.

Putting a Mac into Target Disk Mode merely requires holding down the T key during boot or clicking a button in the Startup Disk preference pane.

There’s no software to configure nor any permissions to worry about.

Easy setup: Because Apple has baked Target Disk Mode into the Mac firmware, the version of macOS is irrelevant.Nearly universal: Every Mac sold in the last decade supports Target Disk Mode, so you can be sure it will work with any modern Mac.Target Disk Mode is nearly universal, easy to set up, and one of the fastest methods of moving files between Macs. It’s best to use the same port on both Macs if possible, but it’s usually fine to use adapters, such as Apple’s Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt 2 adapter for connecting newer and older Thunderbolt-capable Macs. You can connect the Macs using Thunderbolt 3, USB-C (on the MacBook), Thunderbolt 2, or FireWire. Target Disk Mode is a special boot mode that enables nearly any Mac to behave like an external hard drive for another Mac. To cut the copy time in half, though, try Target Disk Mode instead.

If you had an external hard drive with sufficient free space handy, you could copy all the data to it from one Mac and then copy the data back off to another Mac. You can send files via AirDrop, attach them to an email message, put them in a Messages conversation, turn on and connect via File Sharing, or use Dropbox or Google Drive as an intermediary, to name just a few of the more obvious approaches.īut what if you have a lot of data-say tens or even hundreds of gigabytes-to transfer from one Mac to another? The techniques listed above might work, but we wouldn’t bet on it. We have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to the number of ways we can move data between Macs.

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