Setting up a new laptop and moving your files across, without losing anything

A new laptop is exciting for about twenty minutes. Then you open it, sign in, and realise that everything you actually need is still on the old one: the photos, the documents, the email that goes back years, the browser that knows all your passwords, the printer that only the old machine can see. One wrong move at this point can mean starting over, or worse.

This is the order we do it in, and the places where people lose things.

Before anything: know where your files actually live

The most common mistake is not technical. It is assuming you know where your files are. On most machines today, files live in four different places, and you have to move each kind differently.

• On the machine itself. Documents, Downloads, the Desktop, a folder someone made years ago called “Stuff”. These move only if you move them.
• In a cloud folder. OneDrive, iCloud Drive, Google Drive, Dropbox. These come down on the new machine when you sign in, but only the folders that were actually syncing. People are often surprised to find their Desktop was synced and their Documents were not, or the other way round.
• In an email account. Mail, contacts and calendar on a modern account (Microsoft, Google, iCloud) live on the server and reappear when you sign in. Mail in an old program on the machine, or on an old-style account with everything downloaded, lives on the machine and needs moving.
• Inside a program. Accounts software, a photo library, a password manager, a game’s saves, a scanner’s archive. Each has its own place and sometimes its own export.

Ten minutes walking round the old machine with this list is worth more than any transfer tool. Open Documents. Open Pictures. Open the email program and look at how far back it goes. Check which cloud folders have the green tick. Write down what you find.

Rule one: the old machine stays on

The old laptop is your backup until the new one has earned the name. Keep it switched on and keep it in the house. Do not wipe it, do not sell it, do not hand it to a relative, until you have opened your files on the new machine and lived with it for a week. Nearly every story we hear of a lost photo library involves the old machine being reset too early.

If the old laptop no longer works, this still applies to its drive. The drive inside a dead laptop is very often perfectly healthy, and the files can be read from it on other equipment. Do not throw the machine away because it will not switch on.

Move the irreplaceable first

The order matters because the first things to move should be the things no money can buy back.

1. Photos and videos. The whole library, including the folders you forgot about and the phone backups that landed in a corner.
2. Documents. Everything in Documents and Desktop, and the “Stuff” folder.
3. The email archive, if it lives on the machine instead of the server.
4. Anything a program keeps for itself that you would miss: the accounts file, the password vault, the scans.

Windows and programs can always be reinstalled. These cannot.

Copy, do not move. Leave the originals on the old machine for now. Then open a sample on the new machine: a photo from the oldest folder, a document from the newest, an email from years back. “Copied” and “opens” are not the same thing, and you want to find a problem now rather than in six months.

Then the accounts

Signing in is where people get locked out, so do this while the old machine is still working and in reach.

• Email. Sign in on the new machine and check that mail, contacts and calendar all appear. If any folder is missing, it lived on the old machine, and you go back to step three.
• The browser. Sign in to the same browser account and let it sync. Then check the saved passwords are there, because that is the moment to find out, not the moment you need one.
• Two-step codes. If any account sends a code to the old machine, or trusts it as a known device, change that now. An authenticator app on your phone carries on regardless. A code that goes to a device you have just wiped does not.
• Licences. Software you paid for is often tied to a number of machines. Sign out on the old one before you sign in on the new, or you will be arguing with a licence server.

Then the programs

Install only what you use. A new machine is the one chance to leave behind ten years of things that were installed once and never opened. If you are not sure whether you use something, you do not.

Two things to do on day one, before the machine has a chance to settle into bad habits. First, take off the manufacturer’s trial software and clutter, the antivirus trial, the pop-ups, the toolbars; none of it is anything you chose, much of it starts with the machine, and all of it slows it down. Second, run the updates. A new laptop has usually sat in a box for months and the first batch of updates is large; let it finish before you judge the machine’s speed.

Then the everyday things

A set-up is not finished when the files have arrived. It is finished when the things you do every day work without thinking.

• The printer connected and a page printed.
• Email sending as well as arriving. Send yourself a message.
• The browser with its bookmarks and passwords.
• The one program you use most, opened, with its files where you expect them.
• The phone talking to the laptop, if it did before.

Do these on the day. It is far easier to fix a printer while the old machine that printed fine is still next to it.

When to call it done

Live with the new machine for a week with the old one still available. If nothing has turned out to be missing by then, you can think about what to do with the old laptop: wipe it properly before it goes anywhere, because a reset that leaves your files recoverable is not a reset. If it is going to a relative, a wipe and a fresh set-up for them is the kind thing to do.

If any of this is more than you want to take on, it is the heart of the set-up job we do: the files, photos, documents, email, contacts and browser carried across, checked together, the clutter removed, the printer and the email working, and the old machine left exactly as it was until you say otherwise. We do it at your desk, because that is where the printer, the Wi-Fi and the old machine are.