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Q: Convert a mobile account into a local account
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Jan 23, 2011 11:45 AMby Miles Muri,The way we do it is basically the same in either direction with the basic goal of retaining the user's data and settings:
1) delete the user from the local machine, but leaving the home folder as is (the home folder will be changed to +user (deleted)+ )
2) recreate the user account either as a new local account (from system prefs), or a new mobile account (by logging in and creating the account, then logout) as required.
3) as an admin, delete the default home folder that was created when the account was created. I usually do this from the command line : sudo rm -rf /Users/user
4) again from the command line, change the name of the home folder : sudo mv /Users/+user (deleted)+ /Users/user
5) finally change the permissions on the home folder: sudo chown -R /Users/+user user+
Test, it should be good from there.
Miles -
Apr 2, 2011 5:02 PMby GLMyers,I follow similar procedures except I don't use Terminal. For #3 I just move it to the trash using an administrative account. For #4 I use Get Info to change group permissions on Users and the username folder so I can remove the (Deleted) from the name of the folder, and then I change the permissions back using Get Info. For #5 I use Batchmod to change only the Owner on the users home folder and all subfolders. Although the owner name reads correctly before this step it is not. After this step the former mobile account is a local account.
Message was edited by: GLMyers -
Apr 3, 2011 7:08 PMby UptimeJeff,Helpfuleven easier..
1) delete user from local machine (do not delete user home folder)
2) rename user home folder to original short name
3) create new user with original short name, you will see an option to use the existing home folder, all permissions will be updated automatically -
May 9, 2016 10:41 AMby mrcamuti,How to convert a local user account to a network user account - Apple Support which is really just an Apple-version of UptimeJeff's approach.
If you need to do this a lot, I put a script up on GitHub to address this: https://github.com/mrcamuti/ADtoLocal
The script was tested on 10.8+, YMMV on 10.5, 10.6, and 10.7.
-Steve
