Transfers by Disk

Another way to transfer Windows files to the Mac is to put them onto a disk that you then pop into the Mac. (Windows can’t read all Mac disks without special software, but the Mac can read Windows disks.)

This disk can take any of these forms:

  • An external hard drive or iPod. If you have an external hard drive (USB or IEEE 1394, what Apple calls FireWire), then you’re in great shape. While it’s connected to the PC, drag files and folders onto it. Then unhook the drive from the PC, attach it to the Mac, and marvel as its icon pops up on your desktop, its contents ready for dragging to your Mac’s built-in hard drive. (The Mac can read Windows disks and flash drives, which use unappetizingly named formatting schemes like FAT32 and NTFS, but Windows can’t read Mac hard drives or flash drives.)

    Most iPods work great for this process, too; they can operate as external hard drives—even the iPod Nano.

  • A Time Capsule. An Apple Time Capsule is a sleek, white box that contains a huge hard drive plus a wireless base station. The idea, of course, is to create a Wi-Fi network for your house or office and include a built-in disk for backing up all your computers, automatically and wirelessly.

    That also means the Time Capsule makes a great transfer station between a PC and a Mac, since its icon shows up on the desktops of both.

  • A USB flash drive. These small keychainy sticks don’t hold nearly as much data as, say, a hard drive. But they’re cheap, and they work on both Macs and PCs. Like ...

Get Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual, El Capitan Edition now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.