As I briefly noted on Twitter, I will typically install everything fresh when setting up a new Mac. There are a variety of reasons why I think this is a good idea, but here is one you might not always think of.

When you do a fresh install of applications that you use frequently, you see them differently than you normally do. They have all of their default settings, not the options you have selected.

As a result of this, I ended up discovering several features that had been added to software I’ve used for a long time. If I’d migrated my preferences, I never would have seen some of these features.

All users have certain usage patterns with software, and that includes the developer who created the software. The developer will optimize certain paths through their software without thinking twice about it. If you use the software in a different way, going back to revisit the “beaten path” (and new features that may have widened that path even further) can be pretty interesting.