Good news if you’re thinking of replacing your Mac or need a repair. Apple has now eliminated the $99 fee it used to charge for transferring your data to a new Mac or a replacement Mac.
TidBITS were the first to report that from April 2nd 2019, Apple has dropped the $99 fee it used to charge to transfer your files and data onto a new Mac.
You don’t have to use the free migration service that Apple provides though.
You can follow Apple’s instructions and do it yourself using Migration Assistant on macOS but it’s obviously a lot more convenient if your new Mac is ready to go from the start.
Migration is not as important as it used to be either as if you sign into your Mac with your Apple ID and save everything to iCloud, your data will be automatically downloaded onto your new Mac.
We still strongly recommend that you use an external hard drive to regularly backup your files though. If your hard drive fails and you have no cloud or hard backup, there’s usually little that Apple can do to rescue your data and migrate it to a new Mac.