Moving Home folder loses prefs?

Question

Moving Home folder loses prefs?

MacOS Catalina 10.15.3, iMac Retina 5K, 27-inch, 1TB SSD

Copied Home folder to external drive connected via TB3.
Opened System Preferences | Users and Groups
Unlock
Right-click user in left pane, chose Advanced Options
Chose the new folder location
Restarted

Instead of just restarting, it acted as though it was re-installing the OS. While restarting, I was asked to sign up for iCloud, which I chose to do later. When if finally restarted, my dock was in the default configuration, the app prefs were back to their defaults and my non-iCloud mail accounts were hosed.

I re-installed my previous setup via Time Machine, so no permanent harm was done. But I still want to move my Home folder to an external drive. How can I do that while keeping all of my prefs and mail accounts.

iMac Line (2012 and Later)

Posted on Apr 11, 2020 9:27 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Francis Drouillard Author

Level 1

22 points

Apr 12, 2020 10:32 AM in response to Barney-15E

Yes, I did it while logged into the account I was moving. Re-installed from TM backup, then tried again:

Created another Administrative Account

Copied Users folder to external drive

Opened System Preferences | Users and Groups

Unlock, right-click user in left pane, chose Advanced Options

Choose new home folder location

Close System Preferences

Get Info on external drive, check "ignore ownership on this drive"

Restart

Login as user whose Home folder I moved

Now I have some other problems. First, I don't have permission to access either the Desktop or Documents folders. In fact, neither folder even shows up in the Home folder at its new location. Second, the Downloads, Movies, Music and Pictures folders show a red circle with white bar on them and they too are inaccessible.

Is this a problem with iCloud Drive? Should I disable it then try again? No? What else could be wrong?

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Answer 2

Barney-15E

Level 10

116,620 points

Apr 12, 2020 11:59 AM in response to Francis Drouillard

You should not "Ignore Ownership" on that drive since it now hosts home folders.

Your Desktop and Documents are stored in iCloud Drive, so they won't show up in your home folder.

If you copied the home folder while logged into the other user, that user owns that folder, not the one you were trying to move.

I should have specified that you need to copy the folder while logged into the user you want to move.

I think this will be easier than starting over

While logged into the moved user, Get Info on the new home folder on the external drive.

Add your user to the sharing list, then use the gear menu to set that user as the owner. Delete the new admin user from the permissions to your home folder. Apply to Enclosed from the gear menu.

Open the new home folder, select each of the Movies, Pictures, Music, and Downloads folders and Get Info on each individually.

In the permissions select Staff and remove that group.

Set everyone to no access.

Apply to enclosed.

Now, it should work correctly.

If after all of that, you could try this:

Resolve issues caused by changing the permissions of items in your home folder - Apple Support

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Answer 3

Barney-15E

Level 10

116,620 points

Apr 11, 2020 1:59 PM in response to Francis Drouillard

Did you try to move it while logged into the account you were moving? If so, that's not the way to do it and I can imagine is why the problem occurred. It created a new home folder for you because your user was active while you tried to move it.

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Answer 4

Apr 13, 2020 11:22 AM in response to Barney-15E

Thank you for your help on this item. The Home folder Ownership was correct but permissions are still messed up.

I'm going to restore from TM backup and try again. The first thing that I'll do is turn off iCloud Drive, which has to be one of the most confusing pieces of software Apple has ever made. Once I'm happy with the behavior of the new Home folder location I'll turn iCloud Drive on again. (The user in question insists that her files be stored locally as well as on iCloud Drive, and her authority shall not be challenged!)

Thanks again for your help.

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Answer 5

Barney-15E

Level 10

116,620 points

Apr 13, 2020 12:48 PM in response to Francis Drouillard

iCloud Drive likely has nothing to do with this. Moving the home folder is often difficult and must be done with patience and care.

This user is likely just confused at how iCloud works. Even though the folders do not exist in the home folder, the files are sync'd locally. It's just file system voodoo, smoke and mirrors.

I don't find iCloud Drive confusing at all. I spent a half hour testing how it worked when first released and it makes perfect sense.

When you turn on Desktop & Documents in iCloud Drive nothing is moved off of the computer, and the Desktop and Documents folders are not even moved. The Finder just shows them in iCloud Drive instead of in the home folder. They are still there.

If you turn it off, then things get a bit wacky.

Hard links to all the files and folders are made in the Mobile Documents folder in the user's Library. Being a hard link, nothing is moved or copied. You then must move the documents from the iCloud Drive back into the now empty Desktop and Documents folders in the user's home folder. When you "move" the files from iCloud Drive, hard links are created in the home folders. Again, nothing moves, nothing actually downloads (unless it didn't exist anywhere but in the cloud), and nothing is copied.

The documents are then removed from iCloud Drive (along with the hard links in Mobile Documents).

If you think you are smarter than Apple's Software Engineers, feel free to deviate from the process and completely hose up everything.

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Answer 6

Apr 15, 2020 8:21 AM in response to Barney-15E

I don't think I'm smarter than Apple Engineers. I said I find iCloud Drive very confusing. Unchecking iCloud Drive in iCloud preferences brings up a message that says "If you turn of iCloud Drive, all documents stored in iCloud will be removed from this Mac." That's a bit disconcerting when you're dealing with 500 GB of documents and a less than stellar internet connection speeds. (And less space on the Mac than needed to store all documents from iCloud Drive.)

In the many non-Apple community discussions I've read on moving the Home folder to an external drive under MacOS Catalina, a frequent recommendation is "don't do it." Or make the external drive your boot drive. Or use the Finder to move your documents to the external drive. (Not sure what happens in iCloud Drive in that case.)

Despite that last bit of snark the explanation of how iCloud Drive works is very helpful.

Changing the Home folder location worked as described by Barney-15E for a new user with just a few documents. But the behavior is different with a user that has more documents in iCloud than space available on the iMac. Perhaps the different behavior I'm seeing is because of the time it takes to synch all documents moved to the external drive with iCloud Drive.

I'll try again the next evening or weekend that the iMac isn't in use. If I get it to work I'll re-state the steps here. Maybe in a new post with a more descriptive title, too.

Thanks again for your help!

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Answer 7

Apr 12, 2020 11:55 AM in response to Francis Drouillard

No, this did not solve my problem. That was an inadvertent click that couldn't be undone.

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Moving Home folder loses prefs?

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