Problem migrating data from Windows PC to New Macbook

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Hi I just set up my Macbook Air this morning. The Setup assistant took all my icloud settings and applied them to the Mac, which is fine bc I now have Ipad, Iphone, Mac.  I will retire my Windows laptop one day ; )  I created my Mac User Account during setup.

After setup, I loaded MS365 for MAC.  Then, I downloaded the Migration assistance – I only want documents and pictures. I don’t want to duplicate the Windows machine and all the files/settings.  I selected documents and pictures, but the next screen asked me to set an Admin password for my User account, which is the Windows User Account. The documents are under User in the file hierarchy.   I feel like this will mess things up – I already have my Apple Icloud/Mac user account.  Am I correct in my thinking? Or is this the way to set up the Macbook with Windows data?  I can try to move just documents & pics with an SSD, manually and not use Migration Assistance. It won’t allow me to move the data without setting a user account password for my Windows account.  I’m concerned that setting up 2 User accounts will mess things up and I don’t understand it.  Help! thank you!! Donna

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Perhaps this Transfer from PC to Mac with Migration Assistant Apple support article will help?

It looks like you’ll need to run Migration Assistant as Administrator on your PC so it has the necessary permissions to see what user accounts there are.

The What data is moved, and where? section mentions documents and photos specifically, which is what you mentioned you were interested in.

Hope this helps…

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Thank you Rick. I had read that + other articles and I still don’t understand all of it.  One article I read said Migration assistant creates a ‘clone’ of the machine you are migrating on the Mac.  A few articles noted some settings would not be good to migrate to an M2 Mac from an older machine and therefore, it should be avoided. I agree with that, my Windows computer is a 7 year Dell!! This is from the article link you provided:

• Moved to the Mail app on Mac: Emails and email settings from Outlook and Windows Mail. I have Outlook MS365. All set.
• Moved to the Contacts app: Contacts from People (Windows 10 or later), Outlook and the Contacts folder in your home directory. I use Apple contacts.
• Moved to the Calendar app: Appointments from Calendar (Windows 10 or later) and Outlook. I use Apple Calendar.
• Moved to the Reminders app: Tasks from Outlook. Requires migrating to a Mac with macOS Ventura. I use Apple reminders.
• Moved to the Music app, Podcasts app, Books app and TV app, respectively: music, podcasts, audiobooks and films/TV programmes. All Apple apps, not using on Dell.
• Moved to Safari: Homepage and bookmarks from Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Internet Explorer and Safari. I don’t surf much on the Dell, no bookmarks to transfer.
• Moved to System Settings or System Preferences: Custom desktop pictures, language settings and location settings. If the Mac is using macOS Ventura, known Wi-Fi networks are also moved. Wifi is set up. The other stuff was done with Apple setup.
• Moved to your home folder: Documents and other files from your home directory. And photos, which you can add to the Photos app manually, or let Photos search your Mac for photos to import. I want this!!!
• Moved to the Shared folder of your home folder: Non-system files and documents from the system disk (typically, the C drive) and other available disks. Requires using Migration Assistant while logged in to your PC as an administrator. I don’t know what all is involved here, but I am concerned it would cause problems. 

I didn’t know what was involved in setting up a new Mac so I followed the instructions provided by Apple and went down the Migration Asst path.  However,  I think at this point, I will do the manual migration.  I am waiting on an SSD I ordered, it’s late being delivered, but I will move things when I get it later this week.  Thank you for your reply, it prompted me to take another look at the article of what is migrating and focus on the list above. Donna

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