Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual, Mavericks Edition

Transfers by Apple Genius

By far the easiest way to transfer all the stuff from your PC to your new Mac is to let Apple do it for you. Yes, that’s right: Those busy Geniuses who work at the 400 Apple Stores around the world are prepared to bring your music, pictures, documents, address book, email, bookmarks, and other things to their new home on your Mac.

This service is included in the $100 One on One program, which is worth a look. (You’re supposed to buy One on One at the time you buy the Mac.)

One on One gives you a year’s worth of weekly one-hour private lessons at an Apple Store from an Apple rep. They’ll teach you the Mac, help you organize your photos, teach you the software, whatever you need. That’s gotta be the best private-lessons price ever offered for anything.

Once you’re signed up, the Apple Genius will take your old PC and your new Mac and do the transferring for you. For example, all your Windows pictures (even if they’re in Picasa or special photo-editing programs from HP or Kodak) get brought over to the Mac and imported into iPhoto. All your music is imported into iTunes on the Mac. Your documents and movies get copied to the Documents and Movies folders on the Mac. Your Web bookmarks from Internet Explorer or Firefox get transferred to Safari on the Mac. Even your email, address book, and calendar get transferred from Outlook or Outlook Express on the PC and brought into Mail, Contacts, and Calendar on the Mac.

The rest of this chapter covers do-it-yourself ways ...