How do I move all my files from one User Profile (account) into another? I needed to create a new account and want all of my files accessible in the new one.

hi,

i guess it is pretty smart to use all that pro code.

still, apple has provided a much simpler way: the migration assistant in your utilities folder. you can use it to migrate one user account to another. you can either do from your timemachine backup (which you should have somewhere anyway), or - if you do not have one - from a backup you have made using special software (eg shareware superduper) on an external drive. piece of cake. ;-)

I would suggest a simpler way, I'm thinking that there is something similar on OS X to the of Windows and copying a user profile without making it sound so challenging by using terminal. The utilities migration assistant should be more than enough. Don't get caught up in the frustrating terminal code and spaces, and right font and just foolishness. Focus on the easy and free migration assistant and follow the prompts. Take the path of least resistant.... in here and in life... always! Also, check out these two sites, they may have all of the instruction you need... http://www.120pcfix.com and http://www.805pcandmac.com

Provided you are the admin, copy all of your files, go to Macintosh HD, then click on users, the account, the place you want them, and paste.

what you need to do is basically:

cp -r ~/* newuser/

(from old user home to new user home).

Then from command line:

cd newuser/

chown -R newuser:itsgroup *

you should probably do all that as root (type su in the terminal, or use sudo command)

if you think about it, it will make sense.

all from the terminal, yes. easier in my opinion.

cp means copy, -r means all folder/files.

so if you already copied the files using finder, no need to do it.

the problem is that the new files keep the original ownership.

the "chown" command changes the ownership of the files/folder.

so, doing:

chown -R john:usergroup somefolder/

it means that any file or folder under somefolder was owned by Judy for example will now be owned by john and group usergroup.

but, i believe here you need to be root to be able to assign ownership from 1 user to another. so you must be root or admin.

to know what user id you're currently, you can type, id

if you are not root, you can either do:

sudo chown -R blah blah blah

OR

su

(enter the root password)

then

chown -R blah blah

I think apple recommends using sudo instead of doing the whole su. it is less dangerous.

Let me know if this is clearer

follow this example here, i am going to create a file from the user fred (fred owns it)

then i will sudo change the file permission so user2 would own it.

touch myfile

(this creates the file myfile)

you can view the file myfile and its attributes with this command:

ls -la myfile

this gives:

-rw-r--r-- 1 fred staff 0 Apr 20 21:15 myfile

as you can see, because i was logged in as fred and part of the group staff, that's who owns the file right now.

What we want to see is:

-rw-r--r-- 1 user2 staff 0 Apr 20 21:15 myfile

in order to change the owner from fred to user2 you can use the command chown.

so, here, if i type:

chown user2:staff myfile

it will throw me back:

chown: file: Operation not permitted

The reason for this is that i am not root. i just don't have permission.

To do it, you simply need to pre-append the command sudo, for example.

sudo chown user2:staff myfile

This time, it will ask for the root password. ***

You enter it, and you will then see if you do an

ls -la myfile

-rw-r--r-- 1 user2 staff 0 Apr 20 21:15 myfile

It was successful.

Now, for 1 file, it is not worth it to do it with the command line, but for a lot of files and folders, it is super quick and accurate.

NOTE ***

If you have not set a root password you may have to do it first.

type:

sudo passwd root

it will ask your password, then twice(to confirm) the new password for root so you can use sudo and use that password.

If you are unsure about doing the changes, you can try the test above by creating a file and play with ls -la filename and play around with the chown command. Once you're comfy with that, you can then apply your knowledge with the whole directory instead of just a single file.

To apply chown to a whole directory and all its sub directories and files, use the flag (-R)

for example:

chown -R user2:staff myfolder/

this means that everything under myfolder will now be owned by user2.

Does this help? I tried to be as specific as possible.

ok, what you're learning right now is 101 unix, which is good. Unix is a good thing 🙂

now: the way unix works, and macos (which uses unix underneath) the files and folders work like a hierarchy.

the start of that tree is /

so, if you were to do:

cd /

(cd means change directory)

it will bring you at the highest branch of the file system.

cd /Users

will bring you to where all the users are.

to see whats in /Users you can use your friend ls command

ls means list files/directories

so:

cd /Users

ls -la

(the -la here means show all (even hidden) and long format (very verbose)) this flag is very optional.

you will see

fred

user2

for example.

if you want to see the desktop of user2 you would change directory to it then list the files.

for example:

cd /Users/user2/Desktop

Note that the files and directory are case sensitive, so, desktop is NOT the same as Desktop, or DESKTOP

ls -la

you should then be able to see everything in users2 desktop

you could have done as well the same thing in smaller steps, for example:

cd /

cd Users

cd user2

cd Desktop

this is the equivalent of cd /Users/user2/Desktop

So, for your file, i don't know where it was, but know that if you log in as user2, it will directly put you in

/Users/user2

which most likely the file you had created from the other user was in /Users/user1

if you copied all the files from /Users/original_user to /Users/secondUser

most likely yes, all your mail, bookmarks etc would be copied over.

so in your case.

sudo chown -R seconduser:staff /Users/secondUser

should work

Remember that if you start a path with the character / it means start from the root of the file system, at the highest top you can ever get.

so

cd /Users/fred

is not the same as

cd Users/fred

unless you were in / already

i know it may be confusing at first but it's actually very logical if you play with it.

to simplify, think of it that / means C:\ on windows

you can't go any higher than C:\ (in a way)

if you're unsure which directory you're currently in, you can always type:

pwd

it will tell you where you are.

for example:

cd /

pwd

this shows /

cd Users

pwd

this now shows /Users

cd /System/Library

pwd will show /System/Library

cd /

cd /Users

cd fred

cd Library

pwd will show /Users/fred/Library

unix can look very scary but it's actually vital and very necessary to do tasks sometimes that would take for ever to do via the windows. This is good learning.

so for the myfile you had created, i can't tell you where it is, at the time you created, if you can do a pwd command you'll know the path,

ls -la (this shows all the files where you are)

if you see myfile in the list

do a pwd

whatever is return, the real location of the file would be:

whatever pwd returned / myfile

I hope that makes sense.

you're welcome.

Also know that google is your friend.

All these commands are unix, no need to search in apple or macos for what these commands might mean.

Also know that your terminal has a manual for all the commands, so when you asked me what ls was and -la

If you type in the terminal:

man ls

it will bring up the manual for the command ls. Which will explain what it does and how to use it etc

i'd recommend to do:

man cd (this is to change directory)

man ls (list files/directories)

man pwd (show current directory path)

man chown (change ownership of files/directory)

man chmod (change permission flags for files/directory)

man touch (create file)

man mv (move a file/directory)

man cp (copy a file/directory)

man rm (remove a file/directory)

man mkdir (make/create a directory)

this will give you everything you need for basic administration.

How-To: Migrating to a new user account in OS X

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