Ok, to be a bit more constructive:
This is correct, and a total pain.
You will not get around checking this possibility, so you can already start to go through your important Apps and see what you can export, and whether those Apps offer to import the exported data later.
Normally that would be the case, but that’s where I read here in the forum that the Mac is inconvenient.
You would need to have a look at “Android File Transfer” (Macs seem to have this) or alternatively OpenMTP.
(On Windows, Explorer would do, or you could transfer Internal Storage with MyPhoneExplorer.)
For dealing with SMS messages, there are SMS Backup & Restore Apps, which tend to work.
(On Windows, you could transfer them locally with MyPhoneExplorer.)
The Contacts App should have an export function somewhere which should be able to save your contacts into a VCF file you could then import later.
(On Windows, you could transfer them locally with MyPhoneExplorer.)
If you bought Apps in the Play Store and want to try to use them on /e/ (there’s no guarantee they’ll work), make sure the “paid” status isn’t managed by the Play Store alone. You should have an extra App APK to install, or a code, or something else which could be applied without the Play Store.
Transferring Apps in general means just installing them again one by one.
You can export their APKs and install those again without using a store, if you like that better … but one by one. Installing the Apps would be faster this way, but exporting the APKs takes time, so there’s no net gain, I would say.
(There are a lot of APK extractors on offer, including, you guessed it, MyPhoneExplorer on Windows … but nowadays there are “split” APKs around, which need something extra like SAI.)