Getting your PC files onto the Mac is only half the battle. Now you have to figure out where they go on the Mac.
Here’s the short answer: Everything goes into your Mac’s Home folder. (Choose Go→Home, or click the 
icon in your Sidebar.)
Some of the more specific “where to put it” answers are pretty obvious:
My Documents. Put the files and folders from the PC’s My Documents folder into your Home→Documents folder. Here’s where you should keep all your Microsoft Office files, PDF files, and other day-to-day masterpieces.
My Music. Your Windows My Music folder was designed to hold all your MP3 files, AIFF files, WAV files, and other music. As you could probably guess, you should copy these files into your Mac’s Home→Music folder.
After that, you can import the music directly into iTunes. If you used iTunes on your PC, for example, see the steps on iTunes Music for specific transfer instructions.
If you used some other music program on your PC (like Windows Media Player or MusicMatch), things are a little different. On your Mac, choose iTunes→Import, and navigate to the folder that contains all your music. (In either case, click Choose in the resulting dialog box.)
My Pictures. Windows also offers a My Pictures folder, which is where your digital camera photos probably wound up. OS X has a similar folder: the Home→Pictures folder.
Here again, after copying your photos and other graphics faves over to the Mac, you’re only halfway home. If you fire up iPhoto (in your Applications folder), choose File→Import, and choose the Pictures folder, you’ll then be able to find, organize, and present your photos in spectacular ways.
My Videos. The My Videos folder of Windows XP and later versions contains the video clips you’ve downloaded from your camcorder (presumably so that you can edit them with, for example, Microsoft’s Movie Maker software). Once you’ve moved them to your Home→Movies folder, though, you’re in for a real treat: You can now edit your footage (if it’s digital footage) with iMovie, which, to put it kindly, runs rings around Movie Maker.
Other elements of your Windows world, though, are trickier to bring over. For example:
Especially in recent versions of Windows, the desktop pictures, better known in the Windows world as wallpaper, are pretty cool. Fortunately, you’re welcome to bring them over to your Mac and use them on your new desktop.
To find the graphics files that make up the wallpaper choices in Windows (version Me or later), proceed like this:
Open My Computer, double-click your hard drive’s icon, and open the Windows or WINNT folder.
If you see a huge “These files are hidden” message at this point, or if the window appears empty, click “Show the contents of this folder” or “View the entire contents of this folder” at the left side of the window.
In the Windows or WINNT window, open the Web folder.
You’re looking for a folder inside it called Wallpaper.
Open the Wallpaper folder.
It’s filled with .bmp or .jpg files ready for you to recycle for use on the Mac. See Bluetooth for instructions on choosing wallpaper for your Mac.
The Mac doesn’t let you associate your own sound effects to individual system events (Low Battery Alarm, Maximize, Minimize, and so on) as Windows does. It lets you choose one sound effect for all attention-getting purposes (Sound).
Still, there’s nothing to stop you from harvesting all the fun little sounds from your Windows machine for use as the Mac’s error beep.
To find them on the PC, repeat step 1 of the preceding instructions. But in the Windows or WINNT folder, open the Media folder to find the WAV files (standard Windows sound files).
Once you’ve copied them to your Mac, you can double-click one to listen to it. (It opens up in something called QuickTime Player, which is the rough equivalent of Windows Media Player. Press the space bar to listen to the sound.)
To use these sounds as error beeps, you’ll have to convert them from the PC’s WAV format into the Mac’s preferred AIFF format. You’ll find step-by-step instructions in the free downloadable appendix for this chapter, “Converting WAV Sounds to Mac Error Beeps.” It’s on this book’s “Missing CD” page at www.missingmanuals.com.
Moving your Favorites (browser bookmarks) to a Mac is easy. The hardest part is exporting them as a file, and that depends on which browser you’ve been using on the PC.
Internet Explorer. Fire up Internet Explorer; choose File→Import and Export. (In Internet Explorer 7, click the double-star icon in the upper-left corner of the window. From the pop-up menu, choose Import and Export.)
When the Import/Export Wizard appears, click Next; on the second screen, click Export Favorites, and then click Next again. On the third screen, leave the Favorites folder selected, and click Next. Click Browse to choose a location for the exported bookmarks file. For now, save it to your desktop. Click Next, Finish, and then OK.
Firefox. In Firefox, choose Bookmarks→Organize Bookmarks. In the Bookmarks Manager window, choose File→Export. Save the Bookmarks file to your desktop.
Tip
Firefox is available for the Mac, too (www.getfirefox.com). You can transfer your exported Windows bookmarks file into the Mac version by choosing Bookmarks→Manage Bookmarks; then, in the Bookmarks Manager window, choose File→Import. Find and select the exported bookmarks file.
Or you can let Firefox synchronize your PC bookmarks with your Mac automatically and wirelessly. Details are at http://j.mp/1eH7PBI.
Chrome. In Chrome, use the Chrome menu (
) on the toolbar. Select Bookmarks→Bookmark manager→Organize menu→Export bookmarks. Save the HTML file to your desktop.
Tip
Chrome is available for the Mac, too (www.google.com/chrome). If you sign into your Google account on each computer (PC and Mac), you’ll find your bookmarks already magically present in the Mac version of Chrome. Your tabs, history, and other browser preferences are auto-synced, too.
Now you’ve got an exported Bookmarks file on your desktop. Transfer it to your Mac using any of the techniques described earlier in this chapter (network, email, whatever).
Now open the Mac’s Web browser, Safari (it’s in your Applications folder). Choose File→Import Bookmarks. Navigate to, and double-click, the exported Favorites file to pull in the bookmarks.
If you’ve kept your Windows music collection in iTunes, you can transfer it to the Mac with everything intact: play counts, ratings, playlists, and so on.
Before you begin, though, you have to do some Windows housekeeping. On the PC, open iTunes and choose Edit→Preferences→Advanced. Turn on “Keep iTunes media folder organized” and “Copy files to iTunes media folder when adding to library.” Then choose File→Library→Organize Library, turn on Consolidate Files, and click OK. If the option called “Upgrade to iTunes Media organization” is available, then turn that on, too. (All these steps put all of your music and video files in the main iTunes Media folder, which you’ll copy to the Mac.)
You may have to wait for iTunes to complete these steps. Once they’re finished, copy the iTunes folder from your PC to the Mac. Here’s where to find it on the PC:
Windows XP. Documents and Settings→[your user name]→My Documents→My Music→iTunes
Windows Vista, Windows 7 or 8. [your user name]→Music→iTunes
Copy that entire iTunes folder to your Mac using one of the methods described in this chapter. It goes into your Home→Music folder.
If there is already an iTunes folder, it’s OK to replace it. (Unless, of course, you’ve imported music into the Mac version of iTunes; in that case, you’ll have to copy the Music files from it into the incoming PC’s iTunes folder.)
Now, when you open iTunes on the Mac, you’ll see your iTunes collection, safely transferred. All of it: music, videos, ratings, playlists, everything.