How to transfer user settings from one account to another (on the same Mac)

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Level 1

4 points

How to transfer user settings from one account to another (on the same Mac)

I'd like to create separate user accounts for "work" and "play" (so that I can do things like have separate address books, etc...). However, I already have LOTS of personalized settings (trackpad behavior, login items, etc) that I'd like to keep the same between the two accounts.

Is there a way to transfer all of the user settings from one account to another?

Macbook, Mac OS X (10.6.5)

Posted on Dec 7, 2010 6:22 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Király

Level 6

10,017 points

Dec 7, 2010 9:43 AM in response to chgboyd

You'll need to copy your /Home/Library folder. Make sure you back up first before doing the following. Log out of both your Work and Play accounts. Log in to a third account with administrator privileges. Assuming you are copying from the account called "work" to the account called "play", enter the following in Terminal:

sudo rm -rf ~play/Library (this deletes Play's Library folder.)
sudo cp -R ~work/Library ~play/Library (this copies Work's Library folder to Play's folder.)
sudo chown -R play ~play/Library (this fixes permissions of Play's new Library folder.)

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Answer 2

chgboyd Author

Level 1

4 points

Dec 8, 2010 5:17 AM in response to Király

Király, Thanks so much! I'll give this a shot. I'm assuming the "~" stands for the full path to the Library folder?

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Answer 3

Király

Level 6

10,017 points

Dec 8, 2010 3:19 PM in response to chgboyd

"~" is shorthand for a user's home folder. ~work means /Users/work.

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