Moving Files to My New Computer

So far, I have not run into any problems because I left my MacBook at home. Of course it helps that I am not working on any old projects. Last night I did some volunteer work and didn't get back home until very late. This evening I will have some spare time and it will be a better test of how well I did transferring files from the MacBook to my new laptop.

Previously I listed 7 steps that I use to transfer old files to a new laptop. Step 3 is: Move all important files to the new computer. With my MacBook, that was easy. Any time I create a new file, I make sure it ends up in the "Documents" directory. Linux, Windows, and the Mac all have a directory called "Documents" and so the advise is valid on all 3 operating systems.

When I create a new word processing document, it ends up in "Documents". When I start a new spreadsheet, it ends up in "Documents". Now it may sound like my documents directory is full of files. It isn't. One of the beauties of computer file systems is that folders can contain other folders or directories. This means that I have a number of folders in "Documents" and those folders contain other folders. When I got to step 3 of my list for transferring information, I just copied the Documents folder to my new computer and I didn't have to go searching for all my important files.

Truth be told, I have yet to complete the process of transferring all of my old files to my new computer. I started the process by copying them to a 16 GB flash drive and was amazed that it took up 3.5 GB of space. Now I just keep that flash drive with me and when I need a file from my old computer, I copy it from the flash drive to my new computer. That helps me figure out what I really need from my MacBook. After all, who wants to fill up their new computer with old stuff that never got used on the old one?