How to Set Up a New Computer the Right Way

August 18, 2026

A new computer is the one moment you get a clean slate. Most people spend it clicking Next through the setup wizard, migrating everything from the old machine including the mess, and then live with the result for five years.

An extra hour at the start is worth more than any amount of cleanup later.

Before you start: don't wipe the old machine

Keep the old computer intact and working until the new one has been in use for at least a month. Not powered off in a cupboard — available.

You will discover something missing, and you'll discover it by needing it. A working old machine turns that from a crisis into a five-minute retrieval.

Also, before anything: take a full backup of the old machine. Migration processes fail occasionally, and a backup is what makes that a delay rather than a loss.

The big decision: migrate or start fresh

Migration copies your files, applications, settings, and accounts from the old machine. Fast, familiar, and it brings the accumulated cruft — years of applications you don't use, settings you configured for a problem you no longer have, and whatever's been quietly slowing things down.

Fresh start means installing what you need as you need it, and copying only your files across. Slower over the first two weeks, and you end up with a machine that's genuinely clean.

Choose migration if: you have a complex working setup, professional software with intricate configuration, or you simply need to be productive tomorrow.

Choose a fresh start if: the old machine was slow or misbehaving, you've had it more than three or four years, or you've been meaning to clean up anyway. Never migrate from a machine you suspect has malware.

The middle path, which is usually best: fresh install of the operating system and applications, then copy your files across manually — deliberately, folder by folder, deciding what comes and what doesn't. You get a clean system and you don't lose your work.

The setup wizard: the choices that matter

Most of it is fine on defaults. These five aren't:

Account name and type. Consider creating a standard user account for daily use plus a separate administrator account. Minor friction, and it meaningfully limits what malware can do. At minimum, know which you're using.

Sign-in method. Both platforms push cloud account sign-in. This is generally convenient and it does tie your machine to that account. Understand what's being synced.

Location, diagnostics, advertising, and personalization prompts. Read them rather than clicking through. The defaults favour data collection.

Automatic cloud folder sync. Setup will often offer to sync your Desktop and Documents to cloud storage. Reasonable if you understand it. Not reasonable if you don't realize it's happened, because later you'll turn it off and be confused about where your files went.

Encryption. Turn on full disk encryption now — FileVault or BitLocker. It's much easier at setup than later, and it's what makes eventual disposal simple. Save the recovery key to your password manager and print a copy.

The first hour: essentials in order

1. Run all updates. Immediately, before anything else. A new machine has usually been in a box for months and is several security updates behind. Reboot and check again — updates come in waves.

2. Install your password manager. First application, before you need to sign into anything else. Everything after this is easier.

3. Turn on encryption, if you didn't at setup.

4. Enable find-my-device.

5. Set up your backup. Don't wait until there's something to lose. Plug in the drive and configure the built-in backup tool now.

6. Then install applications, as you need them rather than all at once. The applications you install in the first fortnight are the ones you actually use; everything else is aspiration.

Build the folder structure before you have files

Ten minutes, and it determines the next five years.

00 Inbox
01 Personal
02 Finance
03 Home
04 Projects
05 Media
06 Archive

Or the business version:

00 Inbox
01 Admin
02 Finance
03 Clients
04 Products
05 Marketing
06 Archive

Two-digit numbers force the order you want instead of alphabetical order. 00 Inbox is the sanctioned mess — the place things go when you don't want to decide right now, emptied weekly. Without it, the desktop becomes the inbox.

Then set your applications' default save location to this structure. This single setting is what stops files scattering into random folders for years.

If you use cloud storage, make the cloud folder be your documents folder rather than a separate thing you copy into. Two parallel structures is the most common cause of long-term file chaos.

Defaults worth changing on day one

Show file extensions. Both platforms hide them by default, which makes it impossible to tell a document from something pretending to be one. Turn them on — it's a small security improvement and a large convenience one.

Show hidden files, if you're comfortable with it. Optional.

Set the file manager to open at your folder structure, not at "Recent."

Turn off the desktop as a storage location by habit. A clean desktop is a working principle, not an aesthetic one — a cluttered desktop is a filing system with no structure.

Configure notifications before they train you to ignore them. Turn off everything that isn't genuinely time-sensitive, so that the ones that survive mean something.

Set up automatic updates for the operating system and applications.

Check the power and sleep settings if your backup or sync needs the machine awake at particular times.

Bringing files across

Copy deliberately, not wholesale.

Take: documents, photos, projects, financial records, anything you've created. Application data you actually need.

Leave: downloads, caches, temporary folders, installers, old applications, anything you haven't opened in years.

Verify after copying. Compare folder sizes and file counts, and open a handful of files — including something old and something large. Copy operations fail partway more often than people expect, and the failure is quiet.

Don't delete from the old machine until the new one has been running for a month and you've confirmed everything's there.

Recording the setup

Ten minutes that saves hours the next time.

Create 01 Admin/This Computer.md:

MACHINE: [model], purchased 2025-04-08
Serial: [number]
OS: [version]
Encryption: FileVault ON — recovery key in password manager
Backup: Time Machine to "BACKUP A", weekly. Cloud backup: [service]

APPLICATIONS I ACTUALLY USE
[list, with licence locations noted]

CUSTOMIZATIONS
- Default save location set to ~/Documents structure
- File extensions shown
- [anything non-obvious you configured]

WHERE THINGS ARE
Documents: ~/Documents (synced to [service])
Local-only (not synced): ~/Local
Scratch: ~/Scratch

Next time you set up a machine — or restore this one after a failure — this file is the shortcut.

Before the old machine leaves

Confirm everything's on the new one. Actually check, don't assume.
Deauthorize licensed software that limits activations.
Sign out of every account and service.
Remove it from your account's device list and from find-my-device.
Take a final full backup and keep it for six months.
Wipe it properly before selling, donating, or recycling.
Keep it for a month first, in working order, in case something surfaces.

Step seven is worth the drawer space. A working old machine is the best possible backup of itself.

The setup checklist

The two items that pay off most: setting up the backup before there's anything to lose, and building the folder structure before there are files to put in it. Both are ten minutes now and both are unfixable-in-practice later.

Next in this series: How to Transfer Everything to a New Phone