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I am considering buying a new macbook of a different model. Is there a way I could migrate the files ALSO keeping the original "date created" intact?

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When you setup a new Mac, you're asked if you want to copy over documents, apps, settings, etc. from an old Mac. This happens using the program known as Migration Assistant. It is an easy and pretty foolproof way to migrate data from an old computer to a new computer.

My experience has been that Migration Assistant keeps your creation time stamps intact. It might be necessary to run this from the initial setup prompt to keep the time stamps intact - as opposed to running it manually later on.

If you have problems with the file time stamps, you can always manually copy them over later using a tool like rsync. I'm assuming that you only want to do this for some specific user files that you have, and not macOS system files - as they would be different for a new version of macOS on the new computer.

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  • Thank you! This is exactly what I was looking for. In actuality I did not know about this feature because my MacBook Air 13-inch Early 2014 has held up so well since I got it as a gift in 2014 (for an aspiring coder) and it still functions smoothly, only Service Battery warnings plus I am tinkering with Spherical Video.
    – cmarangu
    Oct 28, 2020 at 4:32

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