Migrate OBS Studio from Intel Mac to Apple Silicon

Migrating your OBS Studio setup from an Intel Mac to an Apple Silicon Mac allows you to preserve your custom scenes, profiles, transitions, and settings without rebuilding them from scratch. This guide provides a direct, step-by-step process to safely locate, back up, and transfer your entire OBS Studio configuration folder to your new M1, M2, or M3 Mac, while addressing compatibility considerations for plugins and hardware.

Step 1: Locate and Back Up the OBS Folder on the Intel Mac

OBS Studio stores all user-specific data, including scenes, profiles, and settings, in a hidden system folder. You must copy this folder from your old Intel Mac.

  1. Open Finder on your Intel Mac.
  2. Click Go in the top menu bar, hold down the Option (⌥) key, and click Library when it appears in the dropdown menu.
  3. In the Library folder, navigate to Application Support.
  4. Locate the folder named obs-studio.
  5. Right-click the obs-studio folder and select Compress “obs-studio” to create a ZIP archive. This prevents file corruption and permission issues during transfer.
  6. Transfer this ZIP file (obs-studio.zip) to your new Apple Silicon Mac using AirDrop, an external drive, or cloud storage.

Step 2: Install OBS Studio on the Apple Silicon Mac

Before restoring your configuration, you need to install the correct version of OBS Studio on your new machine.

  1. Download the latest version of OBS Studio. Ensure you select the Apple Silicon (ARM64) installer, not the Intel version, to take full advantage of your new processor’s performance.
  2. Install the application by dragging it into your Applications folder.
  3. Open OBS Studio once to allow the system to generate the default directory structure, then close OBS Studio completely (ensure it is not running in the background).

Step 3: Restore the Configuration Folder on the Apple Silicon Mac

Now you will replace the default configuration files on the new Mac with the files from your Intel Mac.

  1. Open Finder on your Apple Silicon Mac.
  2. Press Command + Shift + G to open the “Go to Folder” search bar.
  3. Type ~/Library/Application Support/ and press Enter.
  4. Locate the newly created obs-studio folder and drag it to the Trash (or rename it to obs-studio-backup to keep a clean slate).
  5. Move the obs-studio.zip archive you transferred from your Intel Mac into this Application Support directory.
  6. Double-click the ZIP archive to extract it. Ensure the extracted folder is named exactly obs-studio.

Step 4: Handle Plugins and Hardware Adjustments

Because you have switched from an Intel architecture (x86_64) to Apple Silicon (ARM64), certain system-level changes are required before you start streaming or recording.

Update OBS Plugins

Intel-compiled OBS plugins will not work natively on the Apple Silicon version of OBS Studio. * Open OBS Studio on your new Mac. If you receive loading errors, you must manually update those plugins. * Visit the official website or GitHub repository for each of your third-party plugins and download the Apple Silicon (ARM64 or Universal) versions. * Install these updated plugins to ~/Library/Application Support/obs-studio/plugins/ or /Library/Application Support/obs-studio/plugins/ as instructed by the plugin creators.

Hardware identifiers change when moving to a new computer. * Open your scenes and double-click your capture cards, webcams, and microphones. * Re-select the correct device from the dropdown menus to re-link your hardware to the existing sources in your scenes.