Transferring files from laptop

melb

Good morning everyone I would appreciate advice on what is probably a simple process but I am useless with anything to do with technology.
I will be leaving my place of work in a couple of weeks due to redundancy and have to hand back my laptop.  It is a MacBookAir.  I have been using it as my personal laptop for about 10 years so it has documents, photos etc which I would like to keep.  The personal use hasn't been a problem for my ex-employers as many people do the same.
I will want to transfer these to a new laptop (which I haven't bought yet) so will need to 'store' them somewhere in the meantime. Please can anyone tell me how to do this?  Many thanks

Plus any advice where is the best place so source a good refurbished laptop of at least 14" as close to £200 as possible would be much appreciated.  thanks

HereToday

iCloud  

Carrot007

Get a usb stick since for £200 you ain't gonna be wantign a mac (no sane person would anyway ;-) ).

Or use google drive if you use gmail.

melb

thanks for the replies.  Yes I do use gmail.  Is google drive something that is within the googlemail system, or something that I would need to download?  Told youI was clueless!

neilmcl

melb said:

thanks for the replies.  Yes I do use gmail.  Is google drive something that is within the googlemail system, or something that I would need to download?  Told youI was clueless!

Google it 😉

Seriously, type google drive into your browser and log in using your google/gmail account details.

Mistral001

Email the files to your personal email address.   I would also wipe them from the computer after you have done that.  

moneysavinghero

USB drive would be the quickest and easiest way.

If you have a fast internet connection or the patience to wait for 10 years of personal files to upload, and are ok to learn how to setup google drive then that would have the added benefit that you could use it to automatically backup your files to the cloud in the future.

moneysavinghero

As your work laptop is 10 years old it might be the case that your employers will be getting rid of it. Maybe you could ask them if they would sell it to you once they have removed anything work related from it?

theforest

I would ensure you completely erase all your personal data from the device before handing it back to the employer (after you have made a copy of your data of course). Deleting files or reformatting the storage will not be sufficient, the data within files needs to be overwritten. Otherwise you cannot be sure what will happen to your personal data once it is out of your control.

I am not familiar with the MacBookAir operating system to advise how to do this, but I presume the relevant Mac forums could advise or a search of the internet.

HereToday

melb said:

Good morning everyone I would appreciate advice on what is probably a simple process but I am useless with anything to do with technology.
I will be leaving my place of work in a couple of weeks due to redundancy and have to hand back my laptop.  It is a MacBookAir.  I have been using it as my personal laptop for about 10 years so it has documents, photos etc which I would like to keep.  The personal use hasn't been a problem for my ex-employers as many people do the same.
I will want to transfer these to a new laptop (which I haven't bought yet) so will need to 'store' them somewhere in the meantime. Please can anyone tell me how to do this?  Many thanks

Plus any advice where is the best place so source a good refurbished laptop of at least 14" as close to £200 as possible would be much appreciated.  thanks

Laptop for £200? Perhaps a Latitude 7450: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/DELL-LATITUDE-E7450-Core-i5-5300U-8GB-256GB-SSD-14-touchscreen-Win10-laptop/274693590331
or

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Dell-Latitude-E7450-Windows-10-Pro-14-i5-5300U-CPU-8GB-RAM-500GB-SSHD/303892497565

You can move to full SSD when budget allows.

Doshwaster

moneysavinghero said:

USB drive would be the quickest and easiest way.

If you have a fast internet connection or the patience to wait for 10 years of personal files to upload, and are ok to learn how to setup google drive then that would have the added benefit that you could use it to automatically backup your files to the cloud in the future.

Some companies block the use of USB drives by a security policy but it sounds like the OP's employer has quite a liberal IT policy so that should be possible. Just make sure that you make more than one copy and copying it it iCloud/Google Drive would be a good idea too.
In general would never use a work laptop for personal use as you never know when it may need to be returned. Many embarrassing photos have leaked out of IT departments when laptops have gone in for repair.