Moving to a new Mac without losing your time history

18 September 2026 · 6 min read

A new Mac usually arrives with a plan for your documents and no plan at all for the quiet files an app keeps on your behalf. Time tracking history is exactly that kind of file: nothing you ever opened, invisible in Finder unless you go looking, and genuinely annoying to lose after a year of collecting it. The good news is that it moves cleanly if you know where it lives.

Where the history actually lives

Most Mac apps keep their working data in ~/Library/Application Support, inside a folder named after the app. That Library folder is hidden by default. To open it, use Finder, then Go, then hold the Option key and choose Library from the menu.

A time record tends to be one database file. Punchcard keeps a single SQLite file at ~/Library/Application Support/Punchcard/punchcard.sqlite. One file, on your Mac, with no cloud copy anywhere, because the app has no networking code in it at all. That is a privacy property most of the year and a logistics problem exactly once, on the day you switch machines. Where Mac apps keep your data, and how to find it covers finding the equivalent folder for anything else you care about.

Two other things worth knowing before you start:

• Preferences live separately, usually in ~/Library/Preferences. Settings like your closing time and paper style are there rather than in the database.
• A license is not usually in either place. Keep the email with your license key; that is the copy that matters.

What Migration Assistant does and does not carry

Migration Assistant, used properly, carries the whole user account: the home folder, the Library inside it, and therefore the app data you are worried about. Used in its selective mode, or when you choose to move only documents, it may not.

The reliable version:

1. Set the new Mac up with Migration Assistant at first boot, transferring from a Time Machine backup or directly from the old Mac. Transfer the user account, not just files.
2. Keep the account name the same if you can. A renamed account still works, and it makes verifying paths afterward more confusing than it needs to be.
3. Reinstall the apps if they did not come across, then check the data folder before you assume anything is missing. App data and the app itself are separate; a missing app does not mean missing history.

If you are doing a clean install instead, which is a reasonable choice, plan to copy the folders you want by hand.

The five minute insurance policy

Whatever route you take, do this before the old Mac gets wiped or traded in. It takes five minutes and it removes every version of this problem.

1. Export CSV. A text file of your history that outlives any app, any Mac and any format change. Put it somewhere you will still have in five years. Export your time data to CSV and keep it forever walks through it.
2. Copy the data folder. Quit the app first so the database is not mid-write, then copy ~/Library/Application Support/Punchcard to an external drive or a folder you are migrating.
3. Photograph or file any paper you kept. Receipts you tore off and stuck on a wall are not in the database as paper. If they matter, scan them.
4. Find the license email. Search your mail for it now rather than on a Tuesday evening when you are trying to finish setup.
5. Note your settings. Closing time and paper style take ten seconds to write down and save you guessing later.

The export is the important one. A copy of the raw database depends on the app being able to open it; a CSV depends on nothing.

Restoring it on the new Mac

If the history did not come across with migration, put it back by hand:

1. Install the app on the new Mac and launch it once, so it creates its folder.
2. Quit it completely.
3. Open Finder, then Go, then Go to Folder, and paste ~/Library/Application Support/Punchcard.
4. Replace the file there with your copy of punchcard.sqlite.
5. Launch the app again.

Replacing a database while the app is running is the one way to actually lose data here, so quitting first is not optional. If macOS asks for permission to access a folder on an external drive during the copy, that is Finder doing its normal thing and not the app requesting anything; Punchcard asks for zero macOS permissions and needs none of them to read its own file.

Then verify before you erase anything. Open the app and check that a date you remember from a month ago is still there with plausible numbers. If you want to be thorough, query the file directly with the sqlite3 command that ships with macOS and confirm the earliest date in it matches what you expect. Reading your own time data with sqlite3 in the Terminal has the commands.

The seam in the record

Expect a gap. The day you migrate is a day of setup, restarts and staring at progress bars, and the record of it will look strange no matter what you do. Some of those hours sit on the old Mac, some on the new one, and the two do not merge into a single history.

That is worth knowing in advance rather than discovering it in a weekly total. If you work across two Macs regularly and not just during a switch, How to track time across two Macs covers how the records relate. And if the receipt on migration day looks nothing like a workday, it is because migration day was not one. Reading a time report when the numbers disagree with your memory has more on reading unusual days without assuming the tool is broken.

One last thing on the old machine. When you are finished and the new Mac is verified, wipe the old one properly rather than deleting a few folders. “Burn the roll” deletes everything Punchcard has stored, and erasing the drive during setup of the next owner’s Mac covers the rest. How to delete everything an app knows about you goes through doing that thoroughly.

Questions

Does a license move to the new Mac automatically? The license covers two Macs, and you enter the key from your email on the new one. Keep that email; it is the thing you actually need.

Will Time Machine include my time history? Yes. A full Time Machine backup includes your home folder and therefore the Application Support folder inside it, which is why restoring from Time Machine normally brings the history with it.

Can I merge history from two Macs into one file? Not inside the app. You can export CSV from each and combine them in a spreadsheet, which is the honest way to get a single view of a period spent on two machines.

Is there a cloud copy I can restore from? No. There is no account, no sync and no server. Every copy of your history is one you made, which is the point and also the reason to make one before you switch.