How to clean home folder?

Can't use Mail as message comes up to clean up home folder first. I know this must be elementary, but I can't figure it out. I've cleaned up everywhere! What could cause this? Any tips welcome!

what version of the OS and Mail are you using and what is the exact error message?

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How to change home folder name

How to change home folder name ?

Here are the instructions from Apple on changing user short name or home directory name. I've used this on a couple of used MacBooks I've bought on eBay. And remember to go into System Preferences>Sharing and change the Computer Name in there.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1428

How to replace home folder after yosemite erase-reinstall?

Hi, I did an erase-reinstall and then simply copied my backed-up home folder (administrator's home folder) back into the new home folder but this has not worked well. Can anyone tell me the correct procedure of how to restore the home folder. I have a Time Machine back-up from a previous online Yosemite install (not an erase-install) as well as a regular back-up on a separate drive. Can I fix this up (i.e. remove the whole current home folder and replace it properly) without doing another erase-install of yosemite? Many thanks, Barak

baltwo, out of interest, I just found this at: http://www.theinstructional.com/guides/how-to-re-run-the-os-x-setup-assistant
How to Re-Run the OS X Setup Assistant
Under certain circumstances, it can be advantageous to re-run the Setup Assistant. Using some command-line trickery, we can do just this without having to erase and reinstall OS X...
Option?

How to Backup Home Folder Only?

How do I backup only my home folder. I only want to backup my data not all the system stuff and applications. Time Machine only lets me exclude things. So what it the best way of telling it to exclude everything except my HOME folder? Thanks....

If you just want to do... then don't use Time Machine...
You should be looking at Backup... it was just updated.
You can use it to easily schedule a backup of your home folder.

[SOLVED] How to recreate home folder subdirectories

I have accidentally removed home folder stuff (shame on me), and i have recovered data,
but now I don't have sub-directories like Downloads, Music ...
How to recreate those? I can't find anything on this topic for arch.
I can make them using mkdir but that won't for example in future place Chromium downlaods in it (at least i think so).
Thanks!
EDIT: This is file list of /etc/skel
.bash_logout .bash_profile .bashrc .config .xscreensaver
Last edited by mirko28 (2015-03-18 20:03:23)

@nullified and @Radioactiveman
Thanks a lot! I needed to create them manually and change ~/.config/user-dirs.dirs variables to those folders.
@karol
I used sass --watch to compile my .scss files, and sass created ~ folder in my project (I have no idea why). After that i was trying to delete that damned folder using rm -r ~ and that deleted my real ~ folder. I was in project folder i don't know why it deleted home.
Thanks guys you saved me, I was about to reinstall arch !
Last edited by mirko28 (2015-03-18 20:06:01)

How to Encrypt Home Folder Located on External Drive

I have an iMac 5K with a 512GB internal SSD. I decided to relocate my users' home folders to an external HDD due to their size (won't all fit on the SSD).
That part is working fine. However, it has now dawned on me that I would like to encrypt those home folders in case that external HDD is stolen. The problem, of course, is that by encrypting that external HDD, those users won't be able to login, since you can't login if your home folder is not immediately available.
Only solution that I read about is to have another user (with a home folder on the SSD) login first after startup and decrypt the HDD. The would then allow the other users to login successfully.
Is that the solution I should go with here? Or is there some other approach that will work better? Or should I move my home folders back to the SSD and just keep the large stuff on the external HDD?

If your pictures, music, movies are not sensitive, you could relocate those to the external drive.

How to relocate Home folder to second internal drive

What is the process to migrate my Home Folder from the boot drive (256Gb SSD) to a new internal drive (960Gb SSD)? Can this be accomplished in finder or should one use the Terminal window?

Interesting, I'm having the same issue on my MacBook Pro that has both an SSD (for the OS and Apps) and a Hard Disk in place of the Superdrive. This config worked just fine with Mountain Lion; since upgrading to Mavericks this morning, I am unable to log into my personal account that has its home folder on the hard disk.
Unfortunately, it also seems to be an issue with the library folder, as I've been able to solve this issue with symlinks just fine with the exception of Library: the system keeps asking me to key in my password because the Library folder "needs to be repaired".
I can't move my Library folder to the SSD, as it is way too big (for whatever reason) - the SSD is only 96 Gig.
What is so different here is that the hard disk in the system is encrypted - I think this is the problem. I don't understand why, though, because under ML, I just logged in as admin after every reboot, which mounted the encrypted disk and then logged out / logged back in with my user account - it worked just fine.
Something seems to have changed with Mavericks regarding making available the encrypted HD...
Oddly enough, on my Mac Mini at home, which also has the SSD/HD pair, the moved home folder works fine - of course, here the HD isn't encrypted...
I hope someone has a fix for this, otherwise I'll have to go back to ML!

How to reset home folder permissions ?

Hello everyone I have a pretty tough problem that I would really like to fix
Here's the little story... I bought a macbook pro (mid 2010) and I accidentally broke it.. I made a ghost of my hard drive before erasing it and sending the macbook to be repaired. It came back as I sent it, because the cost to repair was almost equal as getting a new macbook..
So I bought the brand new (2011) macbook pro and I'm trying to get my data back onto it.. I took out the new hard drive, ran my ghost program (Ghost 4 Linux in RAW mode in case you want to know) and I put the hard drive back into the mac. I just won't boot.
It appears that the new macbooks require some new kexts or files to be able to boot up. I couldn't even boot my 10.6.3 retail DVD...
I reinstalled Snow Leo with no problems, and I wanted to copy directly my previous home folder (or all content inside) to my new one. It appears to be impossible, because I had a password on my previous macbook.. Chmod or Chown (as root) do nothing at all, programs like Batchmod or permission reset do not work either. Linux can't reset permissions saying it's a "read only file system" (although I can see the name of all files inside folders while it's trying to change permissions even if it always fails). I can't manually modify permissions by pressing Command + i because it says I have "custom access rights"...
I'm really stuck on this one, I've done some searching and I'm astonished I couldn't find any answer about that. I'm pretty sure many pple have had that problem before.
I hope you guys will have an answer for me, otherwise I've lost all my family pictures, music, documents and.....everything else ?
Thank you.

No, I didn't say that. If you weren't using FileVault, you should be fine, unless something is wrong with the old drive.
In the Finder, select the icon of the drive you're trying to copy from, and open the Info window. In the Sharing & Permissions section, there's a checkbox labeled "Ignore ownership on this disk." If that box is not checked, click the lock icon in the corner of the window, authenticate with your administrator name and password, check the box, then try the copy again.

How to change name on Home folder?

I have an Apple iBook PPC G4 1.33 GHz running Leopard OS X version 10.5.8 and with 1 GB Memory. I just purchased this machine, which is in excellent condition, but I have a problem. It is not earthshattering and doesn't threaten the life of the machine in any way, but it is my machine and I would like the Home directory to reflect that.
The name in the System Preferences for Administrator is "gdavies", which is myself, but the Home Folder in the Finder sidebar is named "macuser". I went in as root user and came close to complete disaster, but got out in time. Having me named as administrator in Accounts but not on the Home directory is unusual. If both were called "macuser" I believe I could fix it, but this requires a greater level of expertise than I have.
Any ideas how to make home folder read "gdavies"? I just bought this iBook and it came with the Home folder named as "macuser". I changed the computer's name in "Sharing" in system prefs and I believe I may have changed the name in the Accounts. I know I should not have done it that way, but it doesn't help changing it back.
When I open the Users folder in the Mac HD there are there folders, one called "gdavies" with 10 items, most empty, such as desktop, downloads and so on, though dropbox is there.
The next folder is the house icon for the Home directory named "macuser" with 38 items and is the working folder. Then there is a folder called "shared", which contains no items.
How do I change the Home directory name in the Finder window sidebar to "gdavies'?

Kappy, you are indeed working overtime to help me and I just want you to know how appreciative I am.
Now, I shall take your answer step by step.
1. Log into Accounts using the admin password for "macuser". That password and the "other" admin password for gadvies is one and the same. However, done.
2. Click on Login Options, done - verify gdavies has admin status - done - answer "yes, gadvies has admin status".
3. Turn off Auto login - done.
4. Logged out then logged into "gdavies".
5. Returned to Accounts pane authenticating with "gdavies" password - done. But remember that the admin password is one and the same for "macuser" and "gdavies". Now, I did *not* set it up like that. It just seemed to happen. do I :- ) or do I :- ( ???
6. Select "macuser" account and using Login options delete. Select the option to remove completely.
I am sorry Kappy, but this pesky "macuser" sits in the home directory without any account in Accounts. So there is no "macuser" account to delete.
I went through all the motions and I was sort of hoping that a "macuser" account would *appear* in the Accounts pane beneath the Guest account so that I could delete it, but no such luck. You know, sometimes things like that do happen.
Thanks a heap for the try, Kappy, I do appreciate you exercising on my behalf "those little grey cells" as Hercule Poirot would say - my favorite Private Eye (Agatha Christie).
Cheers, Gareth

How do I move my Home folder to an external drive?

I am leaving for 3 months. I want to copy the entire Home folder on my iMac to an external drive so I can take it with me. I want to clean up the files/folders, sort and delete thousands of iPhoto pictures, organize hundreds of genealogy documents, etc., using my MBPr. When I return home, I want to replace the old Home folder with the cleaned up one. I thought I could simply drag and drop the Home folder to the external drive (2 TB) but twice now I get these two dialogue boxes mid-way. After the second, the copy window disappears and copying stops. A shadow of the Home folder is on the external drive, but nothing else. Can this be done? How? Thanks!

1, Yes. Making a partition for the clone is what you want to do if you want a bootable clone.
2, If you want a bootable clone, you do not want to create disk image.
3, Dragging and dropping will not get all of the files the was cloning software will. Using drag & drop uses more superficial commands then the cloning software uses. So that is is not able to get everything.
The next two link are a couple of site that explain how to set up SD to clone a disk.
http://www.lansharks.net/lansharks/SuperDuper_Backup_Instructions.html
http://mac.appstorm.net/how-to/hardware-how-to/how-to-make-a-bootable-hard-drive -clone-with-superduper/
The link below is the complete manual for SD
http://s3.amazonaws.com/com.shirtpocket/SuperDuper/SuperDuper.pdf
I hope think helps.

How do I change the name of the Home folder OSX 10.9

Hi there,
I am trying to change the name of the Home folder on my Macbook Pro running OSX 10.9 I had a clean install of 10.9, and used migration assistant to restore my settings from a Time Machine Backup.
The problem is that the Home folder for my user is now named "Cody 1" when it used to be "Cody". This seems like a minor issue, but all the programs that reference data in the old location, are forcing me to go and find the data manually. Everything from iPhoto to VirtualBox, all files have to be found manually.
I have tried the instructions set forth in this article, http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1428, but the dialog that should, according to the article, allow me to redirect the account to the existing folder, returns an error saying that the user name is already in use. There is no option to use the existing folder. I have tried re-naming the folder to something different, to no avail.
Ideas?
Thanks in advance.
-Cody

The Apple Support document you referenced is cumbersome, outdated, buggy, and too likely to result in the sort of problems you described.
It may be too late now but see the following:
Niel's post here: How to change name of home folder
and:
Apple Support Communities contributor Pondini found an astonishingly simple way to accomplish what you seek. etresoft distilled that information into the following User Tip:
Changing user account short name
Note that he writes it has been tested on Mountain Lion but the procedure appears sound and should work equally well with Mavericks.
Back up your system before doing either one.
To fix what happened might be possible in Single user mode. I don't have specific instructions but you should be able to find and delete user accounts in the /Users directory.
Type carefully and don't proceed without knowing the risks.

How do I restore the user to the home folder permissions?

I just got an iMac from a friend and had changed the username and password for the administrator user. Then I was going to change the home folder name. I was looking at the info on the home folder (which at this point is still tied to the old user). I inadvertantly removed the user from the permissions before adding the new username or even allowing all users to access the home folder. Now I cannot access the home folder at all. How do I restore the permissions to the home folder or add the user back to the allowed users with access to the home folder?

dalefromdallas,
First you should do a clean install of the computer, while your friend may have included apps, they do not belong to you unless your friend gave y ou the install media and license codes. Considering the machine is also running 10.9.2. this machine will be forever tied to his AppleID which exposes him financially. You should get the 10.6.X DVD from your friend (I'm assuming he upgrade from 10.6.x at some point) and do an erase and install, then update it to 10.6.8 then upgrade yourself to 10.9.2 Mavericks. Then you will have a clean system, otherwise you will be working with a pretty kludged system that will probably be trouble.

Clean install of 10.9.2 on a separate drive: Home folder questions

Hi everyone
I've run 10.7.5 for a long time on an SSD in my Mac Pro with my home folder on an internal HDD.
Today I installed another SSD (actually a striped array of two SSDs on a Sonnet Tempo Pro) and put 10.9.2 on it.
Is it safe under 10.9.2 to use that old trick in Users & Groups -- right-click the user name, select Advanced and choose the HDD as home folder?
Also, I've seen comments that one shouldn't have the entire home folder on a separate drive if that drive is a mechanical drive. Can someone point me to instrux on which parts belong best on an SSD and which on an HDD and how I go about selecting them?
Many TIA
Philip

Hi. Thanks for the reply. Does Time Machine by default exclude System and Applications Folder (I didn't click any option to exclude those I remembered)? How do I not exclude the Applications folder and System files this time around?
In Time-Travel view when I point it to the Applications folder, it switches to the Volumes folder and the Restore is dimmed. I wonder if it's incompatible because it's not Apple's Time Machine or it's a bug with Moutain Lion (the drive is backing up the new clean install of Mountain Lion now but when I test it, use Migration Assistant if I need to restore things again, it still doesn't see it as a Time Machine backup).
What could be the solution? Should I reinstall my applications again (I guess that's a blessing in disguise, now I can declutter)?
Thank you.

How do I make one account's home folder visible to the other?

How do I make one account's home folder visible to the other? Also, when I begin to delete an account, it asks if I want to either delete its home folder, keep it in the users folder, or save it in a disk image. I want to be able to see it from my remaining account once I delete it, so if I leave it in the users folder, would I be able to see all the files (right now I can't

Use terminal to add ACL to the account,
at the prompt:
sudo chmod -R +a "<user> allow list,addfile,search,delete,add_subdirectory,delete_child,readattr,writeattr,readextattr, writeextattr,readsecurity,file_inherit,directoryinherit" /User/<user_name> #yep, all that goes on one line!#
#Replace <user> with the user name that you want to have file/folder privileges#
#Replace <user_name> with the account you want to process#
example:
sudo chmod -R +a "sue allow list,add_file, .... deletechild,readsecurity,file_inherit,directoryinherit
/User/joe
#sue now gets full access to joe's files and folders#
to remove:
sudo chmod -R -a "sue allow list,add_file, .... deletechild,readsecurity,file_inherit,directoryinherit
/User/joe
You can add as many users as you want! Just lather, rinse repeat. That is how I share my itunes
directory with the ones I want to share it with.
That's the simplest way. ACL permissions overrule posix permissions.

How do I install OSX onto a new SSD (in the place of my optical drive) without transferring all data across. However, with the applications, system and library on the SSD to improve the speed, but keep non essential items (the home folder) on the HDD

I have a mid 2009 13 inch unibody 2.53GHz MacBook Pro. I'm finding that it doesn't run as quickly as it used to.
A genius in the Apple store suggested that I replace my optical drive with an SSD, however only use the SSD for OSX, applications, system and library. Keep all documents, pictures, music etc on the current hard drive.
I would be grateful if someone could help me with:
1) installing OSX on the SSD without copying across data from the current hard drive
2) transferring applications, system and library folders across to the SSD so that they still function
3) changing my settings so that OSX reads the home folder from the current hard drive, as well as all the applications' data (documents, music etc...)
However, I would like to run iMovie, with all events etc solely from the SSD to speed up the process of editing movies.
If anyone could help with this, it would be much appreciated.

If you got the data transfer cable with your SSD, the procedure should be pretty simple - and there should be step-by-step instructions in the box. You're simply going to remove the bottom case of your computer (using a Phillips #00 screwdriver), take out the two screws in the bracket holding the hard drive into place (using same screwdriver), remove the drive and (use a Torx 6 screwdriver) remove the four screws that hold the hard drive in place. Then put in the SSD and reassemble the machine.
Then you'll plug up the old hard drive by using the SATA to USB cable and use the option key to boot from the old drive. I don't know what data transfer software Crucial provides, but I would recommend formatting the SSD using Disk Utility from your old drive ("Mac OS Extended (Journaled)" with a single GUID partition) and then use Carbon Copy Cloner to clone your old drive to your new SSD (see this user tip for cloning - https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-4122). You needn't worry about getting an enclosure since you have the data transfer cable and you don't want to use your old hard drive.
There are a number of videos on YouTube that take you step-by-step through this procedure - many specific to Crucial SSDs and their data transfer kit - do a little searching there if you're unsure of how to procede.
Clinton

How to clean home folder?

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