I thought I would ping this out there for a sanity check.

I need to clean install my machine and have, in the past, installed and restored via the Time Capsule. It works really well, but I want a totally fresh machine and I believe that all the crap that was installed in the original machine gets transferred too.

Am I right in thinking I will have to pick at the bones of my Time Capsule backup to restore the stuff I want to keep after re-installing OS X?

You can just copy your user directory into the new install from the time machine backup. Of course you’ll have your old preferences etc. then too, which may or may not be an issue. In which case, pick and choose it is…

I’ve done this a couple of times, what catches you out are things like emails (you need to export the mailboxes), email attachments (in the Library somewhere), Stickies notes, address book stuff, iCal stuff, few other bits. Yeah, you’ll know to back up all yer pics, movies, grot, etc, but what about all the other little bits and bobs?

If you install a fresh OS on a new HD, then many applications will allow you to import data from other disks and applications. iTunes and iPhoto are a doddle.

Then there is the backup the backup problem!

I’ll need a 1TB drive to backup the 900 odd gig of ‘old’ backups on the Time Capsule.

Aarrrg!

That’s an awful lot of grot. 😯

lol… actually there is only 1GB of that; just measured 😉

All this had me looking at the new i7 MacBook Pros at the airport yesterday. They are fast. I tried video stabilisation in iMovie on one (I do that a lot, and it takes a lot of grunt) and the it sailed through with it’s 8 cores buzzing away.

*resists going to the Apple site again

Heh! I’ve told this before on here, but a flatmate once bought a new iMac. Within a few days, he was experiencing problems, computer was running really slowly and that. So he asked me to have a look at it, try sort it out.

Over 80GB of grot on there. Within just a few days. 80 GB. 😯

Explained why the internets had bin so slow that week…