The files are the easy part. What catches people out is everything that was never a file — saved passwords, licence keys, the printer, two-factor codes, the email account set up so long ago nobody remembers the password.
The order you work in decides whether this takes an afternoon or a fortnight of discovering things you forgot to bring. Old machine first, then the route across, then the new machine — and the wipe last of all.
Before you touch the new machine
- Make a full backup of the old one. Not because the move will fail, but because it is your only route back to something you forgot — if nothing is backing this machine up, set that up and let it finish first.
- Write down what you actually use. Open the program list and note what you would miss. Most people use a dozen things and install fifty.
- Find your licence keys for anything bought once rather than subscribed to — accounting software, design tools. The purchase email usually holds the key; search the product name plus “licence” or “serial”.
- Deauthorise software that counts installations. Some licences allow only a set number of machines and count the old computer until you sign out there — Adobe apps, older Office versions and some accounting packages all do this. Deactivating after the wipe ranges from tedious to impossible.
- Move two-factor apps before anything is wiped. If your authenticator lives on your phone this matters less; if it is on the old computer, transfer it now — this is the single most common way people lock themselves out.
- Rescue the browser’s memory. A browser signed in to a Google, Microsoft or Firefox account brings bookmarks and saved passwords along by itself; if not, export both from the settings. Those saved passwords are the only copy of half your logins.
- Find email stored locally. Modern accounts keep mail on the server, but older setups — Outlook with POP, years of archive PST files — keep it on the machine, in a hidden folder, backed up by nothing. Confirm any mail you care about exists somewhere other than the old drive.
Pick the route that fits your machines
Windows to Windows
On Windows 11, sign in to both machines with the same Microsoft account and the built-in Windows Backup app does most of the ferrying: files travel through OneDrive, settings follow the account, and the new machine offers your app list back. Two caveats: anything larger than your OneDrive storage has to travel another way, and programs from outside the Microsoft Store are not carried over — you reinstall those from your step-2 list. For big collections, an external drive is still the workhorse: copy on, copy off, keep it as a bonus backup.
If the move happened because the old machine could not leave Windows 10, here are the options now that support has ended.
Moving to a Mac, from either side
Apple’s Migration Assistant is the best transfer tool either company ships. Run it on the new Mac and it pulls your user account, files, apps and settings from the old Mac over a cable, the network or a Time Machine backup. A Windows version brings mail, contacts, calendars and files across from a PC — programs stay behind, since Windows software does not run on a Mac. Its weakness is thoroughness — it carries ten years of clutter as faithfully as ten years of work — so if the old Mac was a mess, migrate only your files and reinstall apps by hand.
Cloud sync as the mover
OneDrive, Google Drive, Dropbox and iCloud do not care which platform you sign in from — whatever they hold appears. If your working files already live in one, the move is signing in and waiting, Windows to Mac included. Check the sync has finished before you wipe anything: a folder still marked “syncing” is a list of promises, not files.
The folders that hide from every method
Do not stop at Documents. The usual casualties live elsewhere: the desktop, the downloads folder, and above all the hidden AppData folder on Windows (Library on a Mac), where programs keep things that look like settings but are actually your data — accounting company files, local email archives, photo library catalogues. For any program on your keep-list, use its own backup or export menu rather than hunting for its files — the program knows where everything is, so you don’t have to.
If the two-machines-and-a-cable stage is further than you want to go, a technician on Koadi can run the whole move over a screen-share, usually in one sitting.
What to leave behind
Not everything on the old machine has earned the trip. Leave these behind on purpose:
- The old antivirus. Windows Defender is built in, genuinely good and does not nag. A third-party suite dragged across is a common reason a brand-new computer already feels slow.
- The startup crowd. Every updater, helper and tray icon that loaded at boot got there one install at a time. Start from zero and add back only what you miss.
- Old printer and device drivers. Windows and macOS find modern printers on their own; a driver bundle from 2015 is how a new computer inherits old printing problems.
Set it up properly while it is still empty
A new computer is the one moment when doing things right costs nothing extra:
- Turn on the built-in backup — File History, Windows Backup or Time Machine — before the machine holds anything you would miss.
- Use a proper account with a password, one per person, not an open shared machine.
- Uninstall the preloaded trial antivirus and whatever else the manufacturer was paid to include.
- Let the first round of updates finish before judging the speed; the first hour is a festival of firmware.
Keep the old machine running for a week or two before wiping it. The forgotten thing always surfaces, and always at the moment you need it.
Wiping the old one and letting it go
Deleting files and emptying the recycle bin removes nothing — the data stays on the drive until something overwrites it, and free recovery tools read it back in minutes. Use the real erase both systems ship: on Windows, Reset this PC with “Remove everything”, saying yes when it offers to clean the drive — the cleaning pass is what makes recovery impractical; on a Mac, Erase All Content and Settings (older Intel Macs: erase the disk from Recovery). Do it after the side-by-side fortnight, once the step-4 deauthorisations have gone through.
If the machine is leaving because it broke rather than aged, price the fix before you recycle it — what repair actually costs surprises people in both directions. If it will not power on at all, the drive inside still reads perfectly in a cheap USB enclosure: have it pulled and wiped, kept as one more backup, or destroyed by a recycler that certifies data destruction. The one wrong answer is the cupboard — a machine full of tax returns waiting to be donated in a hurry three years from now.
Having someone carry it all across for you
Moving computers is a job you do once every five years and a Koadi technician does every week. Post the job free, in your own words, and vetted, identity-verified technicians pick it up. You set a fixed price or take bids, and payment sits in escrow until you have checked everything arrived and works. Remote help covers every US state, evenings and weekends included — a screen-share with both machines running handles most moves — and on-site help is available through local technicians when the hardware needs hands.