I’m a recently retired engineer. Your explanations, unlike so many others, are easy to understand and make sense. Keep up the great work. I’m now a subscriber (i.e. fan) of yours.
Great series of "how to" on the Mac Mini M4. Followed the first videos, and ran into issues with the migration assistance. Found the hard way that MA only works on internal drive. I also had over 256GB in my user id, so migration was clearly a problem. Finally got it all working by partially selection my USER ID folders in MA, once migrated to the internal disk, moved that USER information to the external drive, and THEN used TIME MACHINE to fill in the remainder of the data needed for the USER. I liked this version of yours, since it is much clearer and a bit more simple. My migration effort took over 8 hours. Very excellent work.
Great work, thank you very much🥰 As a first time Mac user and now a mini owner your videos has help me an enormous amount. Have a great weekend and go slow on the coffee 😉 Best regards from Sweden
Thank you first of all for your videos, i'm a bit new to all this and find your instructions very helpful. However i'm a bit confused. I already set up my external hard drive as per your other video. Why can't i just do the apple migration to my new mac, then just transfer photos etc to my external. Will the migration wipeout my external setup? My old mac only has about 158 GB to transfer and a lot are older software that will not run on my new mac. This just seems like a lot of extra work that in my situation I may not need to do.
Around 8:00 in the video, he explains that Migration Assistant will want to migrate to an internal drive, not an external drive. Hence the extra steps of using Migration Assistant to migrate all but the user folder, then copying from the internal to the external drive all the stuff that Migration Assistant moved. Note that if one actually sets up the external drive as the StartUp Drive then one can indeed use Migration Assistant to move stuff to that external drive. But as Apple has made Apple Intelligence not work with external boots most people are going to no longer use external Start Up drives. And I suspect going forward Apple will eventually drop the external Start Up capability. Even now with the M-series Macs the internal storage is the boot device, even if MacOS is set up to continue the Start Up process using an external device.
@@TheDanEdwards Thanks but im not using the external as a boot. Still my question remains. Can i just still do migration and worry about transfer files(not much in my case) manually and will it have any impact on my external drive set up?
It won’t affect the external. In that case, you can just connect your external home drive to your old Mac and copy over your main user home folder. If it’s got the same name, you can change it and then move whatever you need off of it into the proper locations. Migration tool copies everything into the internal drive so if you migrate to the internal drive, you’re then gonna have to move everything again so it’s probably easier just to plug-in your new external user drive into the old Mac copy the user folder and then put things where you need them into the external user folder. icloud photo lybrarys can be a bit tricky and you have to tell your mac where you want your "system" photo library to be you can merge the photos from your old library to the new external one. I keep one smaller system photo library for icloud photos and a much larger library for all my non cloud photos, then I move cloud to non cloud when the icloud starts to get full.
Hi Lance, How long did the migration take? I ask because I transferred all my hard drive on an iMac Pro (Late 2015) to an iMac Pro (2022) with 1TB SSD and it took a day and a half to transfer. I used Time Machine to do it. And this was before I watched both of your videos. I did sign in to my account and iCloud like you said not to - but I only went internal to internal to swap. Thanks! I love your presentation style, easy to follow. Gianni❤
For me it only took a few minutes but I only had about 150 gigs, if it’s a terabyte it should take quite a while but that seems really long. But if you have a huge photo library and tons of little files it could take some time but both computers have SSDs so seems a bit long but honestly I have not used TimeMachine that much.
@@hogajar4444 you can boot into recovery install the OS on an external drive without erasing it on the internal, format your drive in GUID APFS. Make sure to select the external drive as to the location the OS it’s an option at the beginning of the install.
Thanks yet again Lance, the tutorial was a bit more complicated (for me) than the previous tutorials in this series, and because I don't use Time Machine (I use Carbon Copy Cloner), I shall watch the video again, and also print out the comments which are very useful. I'm trying to remember where I saw the instructions on making the External SSD bootable !!!! Get well soon Matey, and thanks again. - 🚙☕
@@billyyoung234 you can just boot into recovery mode and it’ll say reinstall macOS just make sure to select the external drive for the install location your drive should be formatted in APFS GUID partition.
@@MacSoundSolutions --- so Lance, does this work on an existing external SSD which has already got data on it, it won't overwrite everything, sorry for my naivety ? !
@@billyyoung234 yes you can migrate the data from the time machine to the internal drive but skip the home folder, you can copy the home folder from the time machine backup to your external drive and copy the needed data into your active external home folder.
@ no it won’t erase anything you can also add a APFS container on the drive for the home folder which does not reformat the drive just allocate the amount of space you want to use and you can have your other data and the home folder with apps separated into two mountable drives / containers. But you don’t have to do that, if you just want to have it all on the same drive, but if the drive is not already formatted in APFS then you will have to add a APFS container if it’s formatted in exfat. But best to have the whole drive formatted in APFS GUID partition.
Have you experienced any temperature issues with the Zika case? I am reading reports on Slickdeals claiming that these drives get hotter than normal due to the MacOS not letting them go into low power mode.
It gets warm not super hot for me, all NVMe cases get warm so far it’s been super solid, time will tell. I am not able to sleep the computer though and I tend to not do that anyway and the mini when the screen is off and the drive is not being used as in just parked it is not running hot at all, also depends a lot on what NVMe you use. One thing I really like about it is if you have static electricity on you and you touch it it doesn’t eject like some other drives do that only have metal cases? It has not had one issue as far as ejecting goes. I was able to sleep the computer with the Mac Studio when I was using it with that.
I found your video too late and overpaid for my storage. I needed the Mac mini because my 2015 iMac went. I have Time Machine backups but the iMac was running Big Sur. What problems will I run into with my migration when I get my Mac mini? Ps. Love your channel. Wish I found it sooner!!
You have 14 days from day of delivery to return it. I would start from scratch because you are going from intel to Apple Silicon. Best to create the external home folder on the mini like I show in my earlier videos and log into iCloud and all your iCloud data will install onto the external home folder drive. Best to be connected via Ethernet not Wi-Fi. I think if you try and migrate your Intel info to the Apple Silicon, you’re gonna run into issues because it’s gonna write things into the system folders, copy apps that won’t run etc. Best to start clean and reinstall all your non-Apple apps and you can attach the external drive to your old computer and just copy any files or data that you wanna move to the new computer onto it without using migration tool that might be the best way to go just not sure how Time Machine and migration will deal with this transition from the old Intel Mac to Apple Silicon. You can always try it but it might be more headache that way.
Just ordered the Mac mini a few days ago. Been looking around for a dual enclosure. Found one by Orico with Thunderbolt 4. Is it a must to get Thunderbolt-capable ones? Another option is the Dual-NVME but with 10Gbps rated model.
Thunderbolt is faster so I think that is preferable and be aware some enclosures can have issues with random ejects. Best to have a single solid enclosure dedicated to the home folder.
Of corse you can do that but it’s nice to have all your stuff in one location and some apps like games can take up a huge amount of your internal space.
If you use any of apples iCloud services or backup your iPhone, to your Mac all this data normally goes to your internal drive with the external home folder all your iCloud data and photos etc will go to your external user folder instead of using your internal drives space.
Do you see full functionality on the external user folder? When I do it, Spotlight and some Finder features don’t work with the external drive or don’t sync with iCloud Drive. I’m trying to learn if it’s a consistent problem with Apple’s implementation or random quirk with my account.
@ Whew! Finally someone confirming they see the same issue! Thanks! Yes, that’s what I’ve found playing with this the past two weeks. Related, Tags feature in Finder doesn’t work either (I assume because it’s based on Spotlight). Spotlight not working with the iCloud Drive makes this all completely useless to anyone who uses iCloud Drive Documents and Folder sync. I put more time than I should have trying to figure it out. But after multiple attempts, I’ve given up on external User Folder. Hopefully someone will find a solution. Or maybe Apple will fix the bug in a 15.x update.
If you do this, how do backup/restores work? Lets say your mac mini dies, and you are left with your home folder on an external, can this just be hooked up to a new mac mini, and be off and running with the external home easily linked to a new mini? Or can you reinstall everything from a Time Machine backup of your dead mini, and the still alive external? Has anyone done tried either of these to see if there are any issues? These questions HAVE to be answered before anyone can do this project with any confidence they have a backup. Otherwise, you're taking a very big gamble with all your data. My big decision is: do this? Or take the easier route, and put my large files (Logic/Music/Photos) on an external, and keep everything else on the internal drive. After watching all your videos, I'm leaning toward the latter.
You can connect your external home folder to another mini if the other one dies. Best to have a Time Machine backup of your internal drive with all your system settings and data and the external drive with everything on it as well. You can set time machine to have them both go to the same time machine backup. You could then just restore the internal system drive DATA from the time machine to the new computer. Then create a user account the same name as the external home folder and then activate it by selecting it's volume path in the user settings as shown. And you should be good to go. It is basically the same process I show in the video except it's easier because you don't have to migrate the user folder as you already have it on the external drive.
This series on migrating to external drive home folders and apps has been LIBERATING! Even this li'l ol' man with his li'l ol' 8GB/256 M1 using Thunderbolt 3 ports can do it. I'm lucky in that I hadn't yet upgraded Sequoia to 15.1.1. yet, so I didn't have to agonise over A.I..
This worked - but be careful. MacOS and many applications do not like your home folder to be on an external drive for “sandbox” reasons. For example, I could not get iStat Menus to work in this configuration. I have 20+ experience as a Mac and Linux dev - and this problem burned up 20 hours of my life that I’ll never get back. Nothing wrong with the advice here - but beware there are some gotchas that will cause frustration.
IStat worked for me after the migration from my MacBook Air which had IStat installed on it, but yes the apps like IStat that are installed for all users need to live in he internal applications folder.
@ maybe I’ll try again with a different login - but 256GB is going to be a real struggle with me. I used to administer big iron, so I’m not afraid to get my hands dirty, but the balance of productivity has to be considered.
День назад
If you do this your home folder will not be encrypted by FileVault. If you don’t need to secure your data this is ok. Otherwise, I recommend you to install MacOs on o external drive instead. But, in that case you will not be able to enable Apple Intelligence. For me security is more important than AI.
You can encrypt the external drive, but you need to do a little bit of a workaround which might not be worth it the way to do it is to log into the internal backup user first mount the external home folder with the password and add it to the backup users keychain by hitting the checkbox when you first met the drive Then every time you boot, you first have to login to the internal user and then switch to the encrypted external and that works
@@MacSoundSolutions hi nice, is it possible that you can show it to us? Don't know the all right steps. To do wich one first? Very Very Helpful and good Videos! Even for me Nativ German. Ist possible to understand it.
@ will make a video soon. File vault only works on internal drives but you can encrypt the external drive. Will make a video soon.
23 часа назад
@@MacSoundSolutions If you encrypt the external drive, you will not be able to login to your account. You have to login to another account which uses boot drive, mount the encrypted drive using the encryption password and then login to user which uses external drive. If you can live with this limitation, you can go with it.
@@Absorbing146 not correct, booting off an external drive does not support Apple intelligence, it does work with the external home folder because your booting off the internal drive. The only thing I have found that doesn’t work is spotlight indexing the external iCloud Drive other than that I have had no other issues.
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I’m a recently retired engineer. Your explanations, unlike so many others, are easy to understand and make sense. Keep up the great work. I’m now a subscriber (i.e. fan) of yours.
Thanks for the kind words Greg.
@ I also drink a LOT of coffee.
Thanks for making this video! seemed to work for me
Thank YOU! Got my new MacMini yesterday - will start this process on Monday when my external HD arrives. Couldn't do it without your great tutorials.
Great series of "how to" on the Mac Mini M4. Followed the first videos, and ran into issues with the migration assistance. Found the hard way that MA only works on internal drive. I also had over 256GB in my user id, so migration was clearly a problem. Finally got it all working by partially selection my USER ID folders in MA, once migrated to the internal disk, moved that USER information to the external drive, and THEN used TIME MACHINE to fill in the remainder of the data needed for the USER. I liked this version of yours, since it is much clearer and a bit more simple. My migration effort took over 8 hours. Very excellent work.
Great work, thank you very much🥰
As a first time Mac user and now a mini owner your videos has help me an enormous amount.
Have a great weekend and go slow on the coffee 😉
Best regards from Sweden
Thank you first of all for your videos, i'm a bit new to all this and find your instructions very helpful. However i'm a bit confused. I already set up my external hard drive as per your other video. Why can't i just do the apple migration to my new mac, then just transfer photos etc to my external. Will the migration wipeout my external setup? My old mac only has about 158 GB to transfer and a lot are older software that will not run on my new mac. This just seems like a lot of extra work that in my situation I may not need to do.
Around 8:00 in the video, he explains that Migration Assistant will want to migrate to an internal drive, not an external drive. Hence the extra steps of using Migration Assistant to migrate all but the user folder, then copying from the internal to the external drive all the stuff that Migration Assistant moved.
Note that if one actually sets up the external drive as the StartUp Drive then one can indeed use Migration Assistant to move stuff to that external drive. But as Apple has made Apple Intelligence not work with external boots most people are going to no longer use external Start Up drives. And I suspect going forward Apple will eventually drop the external Start Up capability. Even now with the M-series Macs the internal storage is the boot device, even if MacOS is set up to continue the Start Up process using an external device.
@@TheDanEdwards Thanks but im not using the external as a boot. Still my question remains. Can i just still do migration and worry about transfer files(not much in my case) manually and will it have any impact on my external drive set up?
It won’t affect the external. In that case, you can just connect your external home drive to your old Mac and copy over your main user home folder. If it’s got the same name, you can change it and then move whatever you need off of it into the proper locations. Migration tool copies everything into the internal drive so if you migrate to the internal drive, you’re then gonna have to move everything again so it’s probably easier just to plug-in your new external user drive into the old Mac copy the user folder and then put things where you need them into the external user folder. icloud photo lybrarys can be a bit tricky and you have to tell your mac where you want your "system" photo library to be you can merge the photos from your old library to the new external one. I keep one smaller system photo library for icloud photos and a much larger library for all my non cloud photos, then I move cloud to non cloud when the icloud starts to get full.
@@MacSoundSolutions excellent, thank you very much. Again really appreciate your videos
Hi Lance, How long did the migration take? I ask because I transferred all my hard drive on an iMac Pro (Late 2015) to an iMac Pro (2022) with 1TB SSD and it took a day and a half to transfer. I used Time Machine to do it. And this was before I watched both of your videos. I did sign in to my account and iCloud like you said not to - but I only went internal to internal to swap. Thanks! I love your presentation style, easy to follow.
Gianni❤
For me it only took a few minutes but I only had about 150 gigs, if it’s a terabyte it should take quite a while but that seems really long. But if you have a huge photo library and tons of little files it could take some time but both computers have SSDs so seems a bit long but honestly I have not used TimeMachine that much.
this is great! thanks!
Do you have a video on how to make an external SSD the boot drive for a Mac Mini M4? I know the cons, like no AI, but it's okay.
@@hogajar4444 you can boot into recovery install the OS on an external drive without erasing it on the internal, format your drive in GUID APFS. Make sure to select the external drive as to the location the OS it’s an option at the beginning of the install.
Great video! I was wondering where you got those wallpapers/screensavers? Absolutely love them
They come with Mac OS Sequoia
@MacSoundSolutions Ohhh cool! Gonna check right now. Thanks!
Thanks yet again Lance,
the tutorial was a bit more complicated (for me) than the previous tutorials in this series,
and because I don't use Time Machine (I use Carbon Copy Cloner),
I shall watch the video again, and also print out the comments which are very useful.
I'm trying to remember where I saw the instructions on making the External SSD bootable !!!!
Get well soon Matey, and thanks again. -
🚙☕
@@billyyoung234 you can just boot into recovery mode and it’ll say reinstall macOS just make sure to select the external drive for the install location your drive should be formatted in APFS GUID partition.
@@MacSoundSolutions --- so Lance, does this work on an existing external SSD which has already got data on it,
it won't overwrite everything, sorry for my naivety ? !
@@billyyoung234 yes you can migrate the data from the time machine to the internal drive but skip the home folder, you can copy the home folder from the time machine backup to your external drive and copy the needed data into your active external home folder.
@ no it won’t erase anything you can also add a APFS container on the drive for the home folder which does not reformat the drive just allocate the amount of space you want to use and you can have your other data and the home folder with apps separated into two mountable drives / containers.
But you don’t have to do that, if you just want to have it all on the same drive, but if the drive is not already formatted in APFS then you will have to add a APFS container if it’s formatted in exfat. But best to have the whole drive formatted in APFS GUID partition.
Have you experienced any temperature issues with the Zika case? I am reading reports on Slickdeals claiming that these drives get hotter than normal due to the MacOS not letting them go into low power mode.
It gets warm not super hot for me, all NVMe cases get warm so far it’s been super solid, time will tell. I am not able to sleep the computer though and I tend to not do that anyway and the mini when the screen is off and the drive is not being used as in just parked it is not running hot at all, also depends a lot on what NVMe you use. One thing I really like about it is if you have static electricity on you and you touch it it doesn’t eject like some other drives do that only have metal cases? It has not had one issue as far as ejecting goes. I was able to sleep the computer with the Mac Studio when I was using it with that.
I found your video too late and overpaid for my storage. I needed the Mac mini because my 2015 iMac went. I have Time Machine backups but the iMac was running Big Sur. What problems will I run into with my migration when I get my Mac mini? Ps. Love your channel. Wish I found it sooner!!
You have 14 days from day of delivery to return it. I would start from scratch because you are going from intel to Apple Silicon. Best to create the external home folder on the mini like I show in my earlier videos and log into iCloud and all your iCloud data will install onto the external home folder drive. Best to be connected via Ethernet not Wi-Fi. I think if you try and migrate your Intel info to the Apple Silicon, you’re gonna run into issues because it’s gonna write things into the system folders, copy apps that won’t run etc. Best to start clean and reinstall all your non-Apple apps and you can attach the external drive to your old computer and just copy any files or data that you wanna move to the new computer onto it without using migration tool that might be the best way to go just not sure how Time Machine and migration will deal with this transition from the old Intel Mac to Apple Silicon. You can always try it but it might be more headache that way.
TY both, glad I spotted this! @@MacSoundSolutions
Just ordered the Mac mini a few days ago. Been looking around for a dual enclosure. Found one by Orico with Thunderbolt 4. Is it a must to get Thunderbolt-capable ones?
Another option is the Dual-NVME but with 10Gbps rated model.
Thunderbolt is faster so I think that is preferable and be aware some enclosures can have issues with random ejects. Best to have a single solid enclosure dedicated to the home folder.
Hello could you have use super duper too clone internal drive too external. And still have the ability to use apple intelligence?
as long as you are still booting off the internal drive, of the OS is on the external you can use apple intelligence
Is it better to this or just move my documents, applications and photo library
Of corse you can do that but it’s nice to have all your stuff in one location and some apps like games can take up a huge amount of your internal space.
Take care of yourself. Don't drink too much coffee in the afternoon!! 😁
What's the benefit of doing this versus just copying documents etc. on the external harddrive?
If you use any of apples iCloud services or backup your iPhone, to your Mac all this data normally goes to your internal drive with the external home folder all your iCloud data and photos etc will go to your external user folder instead of using your internal drives space.
Do you see full functionality on the external user folder? When I do it, Spotlight and some Finder features don’t work with the external drive or don’t sync with iCloud Drive. I’m trying to learn if it’s a consistent problem with Apple’s implementation or random quirk with my account.
@@ShoutingMan the only thing I’ve noticed is spotlight does not index iCloud Drive. Trying to figure out work around.
@ Whew! Finally someone confirming they see the same issue! Thanks! Yes, that’s what I’ve found playing with this the past two weeks. Related, Tags feature in Finder doesn’t work either (I assume because it’s based on Spotlight). Spotlight not working with the iCloud Drive makes this all completely useless to anyone who uses iCloud Drive Documents and Folder sync. I put more time than I should have trying to figure it out. But after multiple attempts, I’ve given up on external User Folder. Hopefully someone will find a solution. Or maybe Apple will fix the bug in a 15.x update.
If you do this, how do backup/restores work?
Lets say your mac mini dies, and you are left with your home folder on an external, can this just be hooked up to a new mac mini, and be off and running with the external home easily linked to a new mini?
Or can you reinstall everything from a Time Machine backup of your dead mini, and the still alive external?
Has anyone done tried either of these to see if there are any issues?
These questions HAVE to be answered before anyone can do this project with any confidence they have a backup. Otherwise, you're taking a very big gamble with all your data.
My big decision is: do this? Or take the easier route, and put my large files (Logic/Music/Photos) on an external, and keep everything else on the internal drive.
After watching all your videos, I'm leaning toward the latter.
You can connect your external home folder to another mini if the other one dies. Best to have a Time Machine backup of your internal drive with all your system settings and data and the external drive with everything on it as well. You can set time machine to have them both go to the same time machine backup. You could then just restore the internal system drive DATA from the time machine to the new computer. Then create a user account the same name as the external home folder and then activate it by selecting it's volume path in the user settings as shown. And you should be good to go. It is basically the same process I show in the video except it's easier because you don't have to migrate the user folder as you already have it on the external drive.
This series on migrating to external drive home folders and apps has been LIBERATING! Even this li'l ol' man with his li'l ol' 8GB/256 M1 using Thunderbolt 3 ports can do it. I'm lucky in that I hadn't yet upgraded Sequoia to 15.1.1. yet, so I didn't have to agonise over A.I..
Oh you could just follow Toms Guide... or the one in 9to5Mac etc.
@@steveblanchard7293 or watch the video 😉
This worked - but be careful. MacOS and many applications do not like your home folder to be on an external drive for “sandbox” reasons. For example, I could not get iStat Menus to work in this configuration. I have 20+ experience as a Mac and Linux dev - and this problem burned up 20 hours of my life that I’ll never get back.
Nothing wrong with the advice here - but beware there are some gotchas that will cause frustration.
IStat worked for me after the migration from my MacBook Air which had IStat installed on it, but yes the apps like IStat that are installed for all users need to live in he internal applications folder.
@ maybe I’ll try again with a different login - but 256GB is going to be a real struggle with me. I used to administer big iron, so I’m not afraid to get my hands dirty, but the balance of productivity has to be considered.
If you do this your home folder will not be encrypted by FileVault. If you don’t need to secure your data this is ok. Otherwise, I recommend you to install MacOs on o external drive instead. But, in that case you will not be able to enable Apple Intelligence. For me security is more important than AI.
You can encrypt the external drive, but you need to do a little bit of a workaround which might not be worth it the way to do it is to log into the internal backup user first mount the external home folder with the password and add it to the backup users keychain by hitting the checkbox when you first met the drive Then every time you boot, you first have to login to the internal user and then switch to the encrypted external and that works
@@MacSoundSolutions hi nice, is it possible that you can show it to us? Don't know the all right steps. To do wich one first? Very Very Helpful and good Videos! Even for me Nativ German. Ist possible to understand it.
@@Mo-Moto I wil try to do one soon on encrypting the external home drive. I am swamped with work at the moment but maybe next week.
@ will make a video soon. File vault only works on internal drives but you can encrypt the external drive. Will make a video soon.
@@MacSoundSolutions If you encrypt the external drive, you will not be able to login to your account. You have to login to another account which uses boot drive, mount the encrypted drive using the encryption password and then login to user which uses external drive. If you can live with this limitation, you can go with it.
Not 100% sure But.. Putting your home folder on an external drive will eliminate the use of Apple Intelligence & other options on your new Mac mini.
@@Absorbing146 not correct, booting off an external drive does not support Apple intelligence, it does work with the external home folder because your booting off the internal drive. The only thing I have found that doesn’t work is spotlight indexing the external iCloud Drive other than that I have had no other issues.
@@MacSoundSolutions Good to know but its not for me.