All Mail on Networked External Hard Drive

Is it possible to place all mail files, preferences, etc. on a networked external hard drive that would be accessible from multiple Macs in the same house? We bought one of the new iMacs, adding to one of the older ones, but it doesn't get used as much because even though mail can be retrieved on it, we would end up with multiple, unsynchronized, mailboxes for each user. I really don't want to run everything though a .Mac accounts. In essence, can we have a home mail server so that regardless of which machine is checked, the appearance of the mailboxes would look the same?
While I'm at it, could this be done with other items in users' home folders (iTunes libraries, etc.), so they would have the same experience regardless of which machine they logged into?

Who do you get your mail through? Do they offer imap access? It seems like this would be the easiest way to sync your mail across multiple machines.

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Advice on what might be the best networked external hard drive to create my own cloud storage?

Anyone have any advice on what might be the best networked external hard drive to create my own cloud storage? That way I can have access to all my stored files, songs, pictures and most of all movies on lets say my laptop or iPad. Since there is not very much storage on the iPad. I want to be able to access my hundreds of movies that I have from in my home on my network or away from my home as long as I have an internet connection. I know there is a Seagate one and a Western digital one, does anyone else know of any others or have any advice on which is the best? A plus would be for an external storage device that I would be able to access my movies through my apple to tv? Please help been looking for almost a year and cant make up my mind on what product to buy for what I am trying to do and create my own personal cloud storage.

SM66 wrote:
Or, I might have to do the old technique of using the Pen Tool in Illustrator and tracing over the filligree.
That's probably what I would do. If you're not well-practiced in Illustrator, this will be a good exercise. Just place the image you have, lock it down (either the object, or you can put it on it's own layer and lock the layer) and start with the pen tool.
Everyone probably has their own method, but I like to start by placing all the points I think I'll need as corner points (click, but don't drag to make the point curved). I then pick the Direct Selection tool (white arrow) and then the Convert Anchor Point tool. If you click on a point, you can drag it to be curved, but if you hold the Command key (on Mac OS) it will temporarily switch to the Direct Selection tool, which will allow you to move the point if necessary. Others would just make curved points as they go, but this is how I like to do it.
For the pointy shapes on the end, you could probably make one then rotate a copy. For the curvy parts in the middle, you may be able to make one and scale copies, or use the blend tool. As you go, you can switch the visibility of the placed graphic on and off to see how your creation looks on it's own, and when compared to the original.

Hey, can i clone my Macbook Pro internal hard drive and then paste it all onto a formated external hard drive, then make the Mac use the external as the primary hard drive?

hey, can i clone my Macbook Pro internal hard drive and then paste it all onto a formated external hard drive, then make the Mac use the external as the primary hard drive? please help for i only have around 618mb left out of 189GB!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If what doesn't work?
If cloning your internal drive to the external drive is not successful, I expect CCC will tell you so. Assuming that doesn't happen, you will have a bootable replica of the internal drive on the external drive once CCC has finished.
You can then do any of several things:
1. Replace your internal drive with a much larger one (320GB or 500GB, or even larger), and clone the external drive's contents onto the new drive so you'll have all your data in one place. Note that if you do this, you'll also need to buy an external drive that's large enough to back the new internal drive up on.
2. Boot from the external drive as a temporary measure while you clear at least 30-40GB of data off the internal drive, allowing you to keep using it and saving small amounts of data to it. The external drive will then contain the only copies of the files you've deleted from the internal drive, so you'll need a seond external drive large enough to back both the other drives up on.
If you can't comfortably clear a minimum of 30GB off the internal drive, you really need a larger internal drive right now, and you shouldn't bother fooling around with the inadequate one you have — you'll just quickly overfill it again.
3. Replace the optical drive in your MBP with a large conventional hard drive, giving you two hard drives inside the machine. You will then need one or more external drives large enough to back up both of the internal drives.
If you sense a theme here — back up, back up, back up — you are correct. It's flat-out foolhardy to own or use a computer without maintaining complete, up-to-date backups of everything at all times.

I am wondering how to have iPhoto draw all photos from an external hard drive so I don't need to have them all on my iMac?

I would like to save some space on my hard drive but having all pictures on a external hard drive for iPhoto to draw from. I am able to do this on iTunes but do not see how to do this on iPhoto.

Make sure the drive is formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
1. Quit iPhoto
2. Copy the iPhoto Library from your Pictures Folder to the External Disk.
3. Hold down the option (or alt) key while launching iPhoto. From the resulting menu select 'Choose Library' and navigate to the new location. From that point on this will be the default location of your library.
4. Test the library and when you're sure all is well, trash the one on your internal HD to free up space.
Regards
TD

HT4796 I want to transfer my itunes from a Windows 7 machine to a new Mac, iTunes on Windows has all content on an external hard drive. What is the recommended way to set up iTunes on my Mac so I don't lose access to my content

I want to transfer my itunes from a Windows 7 machine to a new Mac, iTunes on Windows has all content on an external hard drive. What is the recommended way to set up iTunes on my Mac so I don't lose access to my content

iTunes: How to move your music to a new computer

ITunes library on a networked external hard drive

Recently, I want to upgrade to snow leopard (finally) but was short on hard disk space on my MacBook Pro and lacking a consistent backup solution. I added a 1TB time machine to my network and mounted an external hard drive to the Time Machine for media. The goal was to have my media on the drive and then back up all hard drives to the Time Machine. I copied the iTunes library to the hard drive and pointed iTunes to the new folder location. (I also moved photos and other media.) The media has been accessible and iTunes works fine (with occasional network interference) but I was reluctant to immediately delete the old iTunes library.
Well, I've finally reached the hard disk point that I must delete the old library, but as I was about to, I noticed that my "iTunes Library" database file and "iTunes Music Library.xml" omni outliner file in the original MacBook Pro Hard Drive Location were updated yesterday, not the same files I copied to the new iTunes folder on the network. I thought if I moved the library and redirected iTunes, I'd be done, but I guess not.
Questions:
1. Can I point iTunes to search for its database and XML files in the new folder on the network, and how?
2. Is that advisable, or should I delete the other music files from the "Music" location on my MacBook Pro and leave the database files remaining on the hard drive?
3. Are there any other considerations I've overlooked in trying to store my media library on a network mounted EHD?
Thanks for your help.

kneedragger101 wrote:
Note this is an iTunes Library that was on a PC
you might want to read these articles: one and two.
why not move your media files using _*Home Sharing*_ ?

How to search a network/external hard drive in finder?

I use my Macbook at work where I am required to save all files I work on to a network hard drive on our server. I also have to be able to find and access files from the network drive for customers. In Snow Leapord I had the ability to type in the search bar in finder and it would search the entire network drive and find what I was looking for very quickly. Lots of people at work access the network drive, and every one of them has a different sense of organization. The ability to search is an absolute must in order to find anything. After upgrading to Lion, I discovered that the ability to search a networked or external hard drive has been removed. Lion only allows me to search my local hard drive in my Macbook. Does anyone know how to search a network hard drive in Lion? If not I am going to have to eat the 30 bucks and downgrade back to Snow Leopard. I have scoured through every little preference and option and have found nothing that even sounds remotely like it has anything to do with the search feature. Anyone please help, if not I am going to have to break out the time machine backups and remove this broken os from my computer.

system preferences, spotlight, privacy, add the network or external hard drive and then remove it from the privacy list. it should start to reindex this drive. You'll experience some slowness while this is happening and depending on how big your network is, it might take a really long time. But after that, you should be able to search in them as well. You can also organize what types of files show first so you can navigate to them easier.
hope this helps

Can I read mail on an external hard drive without importing the account?

HI - I have a large mail account on an external hard drive which i do not want to import on my mac due to hard drive space limitations. Can I review the mail within the Mail app, (or some other app) without importing everything into mail or onto my hard drive? Thanks very much!!

Hi Paint Guy,
*Bootcamp on External Hard Drive?*
Can I install Bootcamp on an external Hard Drive? I don't see why it wouldn't work. Do I need to install the Mac OS on the external Hard Drive first, then Bootcamp?
By Microsofts Design no Windows can be installed and booted from external HDs. BootCamp just follows this.
However, according to this http://tubeshards.wordpress.com/2006/12/05/install-windows-to-a-macintosh-usb-dr ive/ it can be done.
Parallels
Another question. Does Parallels allow you to not have to use the "option" key to boot into Windows? I mean if I use Parallels can I use XP or Vista at the same time as my mac applications?
What, (if any) are the drawbacks to using "Parallels"?
Parallels is an OS X application which don't need a restart of your Mac to run Windows.
Therefor you can run OS X and Parallels Windows side-by-side.
Main drawback is, that Windows runs not native (on the real hardware) but in a virtualized environment.
While this is more than acceptable for 'standard' Office programs, any program that needs direct hardware access (especially games and 3D-programs) either do not run at all or run at noticeable slower speed.
Also you have to realize that the amount of RAM in your Mac is divided between OS X and Parallels Windows.
*What Options are there...*
Is it possible for Apple to allow users to program a key on their keyboard, when pressed will bring up Windows so they don't have to always restart? I need to switch between Windows and mac OS quite often and it's a real pain to always restart. What options do I have?
BootCamp is no option then, since it needs a reboot everytime you want to switch between OS X and Windows.
Parallels (and VMWare Fusion and VirtualBox, BTW) run alongside OSX.
Thanks
You're welcome. Hope it helps.
Have Fun
Stefan
Message was edited by: Fortuny

Time discrepancy on items saved onto network external hard drives

This is an odd problem that just turned up seemingly this morning. I have an Apple Extreme base station with two external hard drives attached via my network that are used primarily for multimedia. This morning I noticed that everything that's saved directly onto the hard drives has a serious time discrepancy - specifically, December 13, 1931 at 8:45 p.m. And all of the files saved since this morning have that same time stamp, while everything saved onto the computer's internal hard drive has a normal time stamp. Is this simply a matter of disconnecting and then reconnection the hard drives to fix the problem, or is there more that needs to be done?

Is the AirPort Extreme base station (AEBS) configured to use a time server?
Open AirPort Utility, select your base station, and choose Manual Setup from the Base Station menu, or double-click the base station to open the base station’s configuration in a separate window. Enter the base station password if necessary.
Click the AirPort button, and then click Base Station.
Select the “Set time automatically” checkbox, and then choose an NTP server from the pop-up menu if you have access to one on your network or on the Internet.

I downloaded all into a new external hard drive because my internal hard drive was failing. then got internal hard drive replaced by Apple Store. Now when I try to sync IPAD or IPhone to IMAC, photos will not transfer. Why? What shall I do?

Trying to download photos from IPHONE, IPAD to IPHOTO in IMAC after installing new hard drive. Before getting new Hard drive, I downloaded all into external hard drive. photos did not download!

Trying to download photos from IPHONE, IPAD to IPHOTO in IMAC after installing new hard drive.
How did you import the photos to iPad and iPhone?
If the photos have been synced to the iPhone and iPad using iTunes, you cannot sync them back.
See this document: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4236
You can't reimport pictures synced from your computer to your device back to your computer. You can only import pictures in the Camera Roll or Saved Photos from your device to your computer. If you need to retrieve synced photos from your device:
If your photos are not in the Camera Roll on your devices, save them to the Camera Roll, share them to the Photo Stream, mail the photos, or, if you have iPhoto on the devices, use iTunes Photo Sharing.
http://help.apple.com/iphoto/iphone/2.0/?handbuch#blnkee26bc1
Save photos to your computer using iTunes
Connect your iOS device to your computer.
Tap a photo, album, event, web journal, or slideshow and tap Share> iTunes.
Tap Selected, or change the photos you want to save (if you are saving a slideshow skip to step 4):
Select different photos: Tap Choose Photos, tap one or more photos, and tap Next.
Select a range of photos: Tap Choose Photos, tap Range, tap the first and last photos in the range, and tap Next.
Select all the photos in an album or event: Tap All.
In iTunes, click the button for your device and click Apps at the top of the window.
Below File Sharing, select iPhoto (in Apps).
Select the Shared Photos folder under iPhoto Documents.
Click Save To and select the location on your computer where you want to save the items.
To view your photos, go to the Finder and look in the location you selected above.

Need help with networking external hard drive

Hi,
I am working on a corporate network and I have a Western Digital My Book Studio Edition external hard drive attached to a Mac OSX 10.4. i have other Macs connecting through the network to this Mac and accessing the external hard drive and it works just fine for that.
What I need help with is the fact that I also have several PCs on the same network (all XP), that need to connect to the hard drive and access the files. I've been able to connect to the Mac using the XP by accessing the IP address. I also set the Mac up with password credentials so that I had to log in to the Mac to access the files. But when I try to access the Mac, it only shows the main computer drive as the only available share and no external drive.
Does anyone know how to access a Western Digital external drive on a Mac from a PC through a network?

For an external hard disk drive or other (different) system shared
storage devices to work, they probably should be formatted in a
format seen by both operating systems.
If the WD unit is not seen by Windows computers on your network,
the WD may have been formatted in HFS+ for the Macintosh. That
is OK unless you need a Windows computer to access the same.
The Macintosh can see and use a standard Windows disc format;
so the external drive may need to be reformatted away from HFS+
if that is really what is going on (and archive any data on the suspect
drive elsewhere, since it will be lost to reformatting overwrites)
and then both Mac OS X and Windows should see the files on there.
And Macs set up to run Windows may also see the non-Mac format;
without having to re-boot via BootCamp, if that option is in use.
As to the other question(s) I really have no idea at this point in time.
And since that may be the rub, hopefully someone will follow up here.
Good luck & happy computing!

How do I restore all bookmarks from an external hard drive to a refreshed firefox?

I just "refreshed" Firefox and lost ALL of my passwords, even though the instructions said they would be saved. I have tried copying them from the Old Firefox Data folder and this does NOTHING. I have all of the data I need on an external hard drive and the ability to browse ( have already found my Firefox profile on the backup drive) and copy and paste data from that drive to my C drive. Please tell me EXACTLY how to transfer my bookmarks to the refreshed version of Firefox. I have YEARS of bookmarks that I CANNOT AFFORD TO LOSE. I will be more than happy to simply restore my old profile even though that will slow Firefox down. That would be a small price to pay, but I must have the bookmarks back. Please help!

'''https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/recovering-important-data-from-an-old-profile'''
'''https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/back-and-restore-information-firefox-profiles'''
These can't get your data back, but will help in the future.
These add-ons can be a great help by backing up and restoring Firefox
'''[https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/febe/ FEBE (Firefox Environment Backup Extension)]''' {web link}
FEBE allows you to quickly and easily backup your
Firefox extensions, history, passwords, and more.
In fact, it goes beyond just backing up -- It will actually rebuild
your saved files individually into installable .xpi files.
It will also make backup of files that you choose.
'''[https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/opie/ OPIE]''' {web link}
Import/Export extension preferences

My efforts to remove malware from a network external hard drive connected to my Intel based iMac is now causing programs to hang when I try to open them.

I own an iMac, recently updated with OSX 10.75. It is the core computer on a home network shared with an iPad, Apple TV, two network printers,my wife's laptop, two iPhone, a BlackBerry and a BlackBerry Playbook. I am experiencing three if not four problems that are overwhelming.
My original problem is associated with Windows emails files or documents stored on my external network hard drive. One or more has malware and is sending malware laced files across the Internet to points unknown. As someone pointed out in a forum my iMac may be hosting,sharing and propagating Windows malware. I originally used Trend Micro software on my IMac to monitor any viral activity. Two weeks ago I noticed a number of notices from servers around the world saying my message was not undelivered. Since I had sent messages to the people I simply deleted the emails. Next I noticed the emails on my BlackBerry and my BlackBerry playbook.I configured the Trend to do a complete scan and although it did a complete scan it did not perform a full network scan. It did identify a series of .x27 document files with the same name tbut each had a sequential number. I assumed hat these were the source files that had sent out the email documents selling Viagara and othernproducts. I manually deleted thousands of the source documents and the files. This caused some disruption to my computer but it did not produce a hardware or software problem. By following this effort in conjunction with security scans I do believe the malware was activated by Iranian students who were able to activate the malware through my BlackBerry and BlackBerry Playbook. I learned this from an encounter I had when trying tondelete these files on my computer and my BlackBerry.
When using my PlayBook after deleting the files from my computer I noticed more messages being returned from servers. I realized that email accounts connected to my BlackBerry and BB Playbookn were not protected from this problem. As I searched for remedies I learned about turning on the firewall in the previous version of Lion but that did not stop the BlackBerry problem. Each time I deleted a source file on my computer more documents were released. I eventually received McAfee from my ISP. It provided security on the entire network. My first full scan of my external drive identified two malware files. One of them was associated with the Cialis ad the other was from a firm in the Middle East called ADP. it could not remove the latter file.
Moreover each time I attempted to remove the source file from my hard drive a file labeled A239A076F would show up on my Blackberry. As I removed them thousands of these files would show up. Ultimately I eventually disconnected the external hard drive and removed the battery from the phone and not use the email accounts these messages had used to enter my iMac. I am contacting ATT about BlackBerry data security and switching to a different phone for business purposes. I will probably change to an iPhone or Android phone for business purposes. I am also looking at ways to resolve the malware on that drive. There are a number of business and personal files on thatbdrive that I hope to keep. I dread having to pay McAfee to configure the software to eradicate the malware.
Moving on...last week I updated my iMac to 10.75. It simultaneously updated every Apple based program as promised. It did not update the non-Apple programs. I am not an IT professional and assumed that it had done so. On Saturday I attempted to download a file associated with my router extender using my untethered Playbook and BlackBerry desktop software. The program hung. I attempted a reboot and it reopened with the hung program. It created an alias file on the desktop. My inclination led to put the alias file in the trash can and delete it. My computer did not respond well to that action. It has been rebooted with Cmd-s-esc tens of time to see if that would activate a file check. It did not. I was able to run a disk utility check. And in spite of the hung process it eventually said the drive was okay.
Long story in a nutshell. My iMac is responding as if it is looking for a subprogram to complete its a function. Or it is attempting to finish the BlackBerry operation it began on Saturday. I hope this makes sense to someone and the know how I can restore functionality to my iMac.
Thank you.

I think the McAfee suite will do the trick when I pay them a one-time fee of $69 or $179 for a year for unlimited support.
Your call of course but IMO a waste of money. Please read this first:
There are many forms of ‘Malware’ that can affect a computer system, of which ‘a virus’ is but one type, ‘trojans’ another. Using the strict definition of a computer virus, no viruses that can attack OS X have so far been detected 'in the wild', i.e. in anything other than laboratory conditions. The same is not true of other forms of malware, such as Trojans. Whilst it is a fairly safe bet that your Mac has NOT been infected by a virus, it may have another security-related problem, but more likely a technical problem unrelated to any malware threat.
You may find this User Tip on Viruses, Trojan Detection and Removal, as well as general Internet Security and Privacy, useful:
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-2435
The User Tip (which you are welcome to print out and retain for future reference) seeks to offer guidance on the main security threats and how to avoid them.
More useful information can also be found here:
http://www.reedcorner.net/mmg/

Backing up all files to an external hard drive

I recently converted over to a Macbook Pro from PC and had all of my PC data saved to an external Hard Drive. I can retreive the data fine, but I can't save anything to the Hard Drive. I have plenty of room on my Macbook, but old habits are hard to break and I like to back everything up at least once a week.
I do not want to reformat my External Hard drive as there is ALOT of information on there that would be lost.
So, how can I copy things over there, or drag them over to the External? When I try, it gives me the circle with the line through it.
And if you have time, tell me about Time Machine. I am interested, but it seems like alot of work, because I would have to copy everything off the hard drive, let Time Machine reformat it, and then copy it back. Seems VERY time consuming.
External hard drive is 2TB and has approximately 90GB on it.
Thanks for your help.

Sorry for missing this addition:
Drive Preparation for OS X
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Security button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.
Steps 4-6 are optional but should be used on a drive that has never been formatted before, if the format type is not Mac OS Extended, if the partition scheme has been changed, or if a different operating system (not OS X) has been installed on the drive.

Backing up all my photos on external hard drive

Hi!
I have iPhoto 4.0.3 (no need to upgrade, nor have I had the time to do it yet), and I have 6,347 photos. It says that I'm using 3,506 MB. My computer isn't running slowly, but I haven't bought extra RAM and I'm sure iPhoto isn't helping the speed of my computer. I have a LaCie external hard drive with 104.12 GB available. I have heard that I should drag my "iPhoto Library" folder to the external hard drive and save it there. I already have supposedly saved all my pictures on a DVD as well. My first question: Is just dragging and dropping this folder to the ext. hard drive sufficient or is there something else I need to do to make sure it is transferred? Second question: Once transferred to the LaCie, will these pictures only open in iPhoto? Third: Is it then safe to delete all my photos in the iPhoto program?
Thanks!
Kim

iPhoto Help topics of interest...
"backing up your iPhoto Library folder"
"moving your iPhoto Library"
"switching between photo libraries"

All Mail on Networked External Hard Drive

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