Mac to Mac
By Chris B., who built Voice Memo Exporter · Updated August 2026
Direct answer
There are three ways to get a Voice Memos library onto a new Mac. Migration Assistant copies the whole user account including the Voice Memos container, which is the most complete route. Signing into the same Apple Account with Voice Memos enabled in iCloud re-downloads anything that was synced, which covers most libraries but not recordings that were never synced. Copying the Recordings folder out of the old Mac by hand is the fallback when neither is possible. Whichever route you use, open Voice Memos on the new Mac and confirm the count matches before you erase the old one.
Voice Memo Exporter does this in one pass: every memo into one searchable Master Transcript. $49 early access, runs privately on your Mac.
Get Early Access - $49 (Gumroad)The right choice depends mostly on whether the old Mac still turns on and whether the library was synced to iCloud.
Swipe the table sideways to compare
| Route | What it moves | What it can miss | Best when |
|---|---|---|---|
| Migration Assistant | The whole user account, including the Voice Memos container and local-only recordings | Nothing, if it completes cleanly | The old Mac still works and you are setting up the new one now |
| iCloud re-sync | Every recording that was synced to iCloud | Anything recorded with sync off, and anything already deleted | The old Mac is gone, but the library was synced |
| Manual folder copy | The raw .m4a audio files | Titles and the app's own organization, which do not travel as usable metadata | Neither of the above is available |
Do these in order. The verification step at the end is the one people skip and later regret.
Decide which route applies before you start
If the old Mac still runs and the new one is not set up yet, use Migration Assistant. If the new Mac is already in use, signing into iCloud is simpler than a late migration.
For iCloud: sign in and enable Voice Memos, then wait
System Settings, your Apple Account, then iCloud, and confirm Voice Memos is on. Open the Voice Memos app and leave it open on Wi-Fi. A large library takes a while, and recordings that are still downloading will not play yet.
For a manual copy: take the whole Recordings folder
On the old Mac the files live in ~/Library/Group Containers/group.com.apple.VoiceMemos.shared/Recordings/. Copy that folder to external storage. Copy it, do not move it, and leave the old Mac's library untouched until you have verified the new one.
Count the recordings on both machines
Open Voice Memos on the new Mac and compare the number of recordings against the old one. This takes thirty seconds and is the only step that actually proves the transfer worked.
Play the oldest recording you have
Oldest recordings are the likeliest to have been left behind or to still be a placeholder waiting on a download. If the oldest one plays, the rest almost certainly came across.
Two categories go missing, and both are silent. Recordings made while Voice Memos sync was switched off exist only on the device that made them, so an iCloud-based migration will never see them: there is nothing in iCloud to download. And recordings deleted at any point in the past are not restored by a migration, because migration copies the current state of the library rather than its history. If a recording matters and you cannot see it on the new Mac, check the old Mac's Recently Deleted folder before erasing that machine.
In short: An iCloud-based migration can only restore what was synced. Recordings made while sync was off, and anything already deleted, will not appear on the new Mac and will not announce their absence.
The library lives inside an app container that Apple manages, so every hardware change means trusting a migration process with material you cannot easily inspect beforehand. There is no export button to fall back on, and the folder that holds the audio is hidden by default with filenames that do not tell you what any recording is. The result is that most people find out whether the transfer worked by noticing, months later, that something is missing.
Voice Memo Exporter does the steps above in one pass: every Apple Voice Memo on your Mac exported, transcribed locally, and combined into one searchable Master Transcript. $49 early access, private by design.
The reason this is stressful is that the library only exists in one place, in a format tied to one app on one machine. An archive changes that: a normal folder of copied .m4a audio with readable filenames, the recording dates preserved where available, transcripts alongside the audio, and one combined Master Transcript. It is ordinary files, so it copies to a new Mac the same way a folder of photos does, and it does not care what Apple changes about the Voice Memos app between now and your next computer. Your recordings stay in Apple's app as well: an archive is a second copy, not a replacement. Voice Memo Exporter works with recordings already available on your Mac, so build the archive before you retire the old machine rather than after.
Yes. It copies the user account including the Voice Memos container, so both synced and local-only recordings come across. It is the most complete of the three routes, and the only one that reliably brings recordings that never reached iCloud.
Most often they were recorded while Voice Memos sync was off, so they never reached iCloud and an iCloud-based setup has nothing to download. They may still be on the old Mac. Check there before erasing it. Recordings deleted in the past are also not restored by any migration route.
Not if the library was synced to iCloud, in which case signing into the same Apple Account on the new Mac re-downloads it. You do need the old Mac for Migration Assistant or for a manual folder copy.
You can copy the audio files out of ~/Library/Group Containers/group.com.apple.VoiceMemos.shared/Recordings/, and that preserves the recordings themselves. What does not travel cleanly is the app's own titles and organization, so you end up with playable audio and unhelpful filenames rather than a working library.
It is not a migration tool, but the archive it builds is ordinary files in a folder you choose, so it copies to any Mac like any other folder. It works with recordings already available locally on your Mac, which means building the archive on the old machine while you still have it.
Voice Memo Exporter runs this whole workflow in one pass on your Mac: every memo exported, transcribed locally, and combined into one searchable Master Transcript you own.
$49 Early Access for the first 100 buyers, then $79. One-time purchase, no subscription. 30-day refund if it doesn't work for your Mac setup.
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Build a clean local archive with copied audio, transcripts, metadata, Markdown, DOCX, and PDF exports.
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