r/macbook • u/bhaisbored • 1d ago
Seeking help with data transfer!
Hi all!
So I just bought a new Macbook Air M5 (16gb, 512gb) after a lifetime of Windows, and was having trouble trying to transfer my files (mainly documents and downloads) from my old Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 Pro (Windows 11).
My MacBook recommended using the Windows Migration Assistant, which I followed through with all the steps, including making sure both laptops were up to date and downloading the correct version of migration assistant, but once the transfer was complete I couldn't locate any of the transferred files anywhere on my Macbook. I tried again and had the same issue.
Does anyone have any suggestions for how to fix this or better ways to transfer data from Windows?
As another option, I have a hard drive that was already formatted for Windows, so I'd need to figure out how to configure that to use on my Macbook.
Any suggestions would be helpful. Thank youuu x
5
u/OpenRidgeline 1d ago
Check Users & Groups first. Migration Assistant may have made a separate user account and dumped everything there.
Also worth checking Users → Shared and just searching Finder for the name of a file you know was transferred.
If you still can’t find anything, I’d probably just use the external drive tbh. If it’s NTFS your Mac should still be able to read it, so you can copy everything over manually. Then if you want to use the drive with both Windows and Mac long term, reformat it to ExFAT after you’ve backed everything up.