Convert managed mobile account to unmanaged

I don't have a preference pane for either MobileMe or .Mac (I used to, but they were replaced by iCloud, which I do have).

Poking around in ~/Library/Preferences, I found these files:

com.apple.homeSync.plist

Has arrays of excluded items, excluded Pref items, other suggestive stuff related to sync.

com.apple.LaunchServices.plist

Seems to be just a list of content types and handlers for them.

Has a lockfile and some "quarantine" files(?)

com.apple.loginitems.plist

What it says. Includes several app "helpers", but no likely sync candidates.

com.apple.MCX.manifests (folder)

contains Active Manifests.plist, effectively empty. (I read somewhere that "MCX" was the name for Apple's manages client technologies.)

com.apple.MCX.plist

Has empty dictionaries for com.apple.MCX, .applicationaccess, .dock, .homeSync, .mcxMenuExtras, and .loginwindow

com.apple.PreferenceSync.plist

Doesn't look relevant.

com.apple.ServerAdmin.plist

Presumably parameters for running a local copy of Server Admin to administer a remote server.

com.apple.syncserver.plist

Has only a "SyncsAfterHysteresis" with a value of 30. Huh?

com.apple.systemuiserver.plist

Interesting: has an entry for /System/Library/CoreServices/Menu Extras/HomeSync.menu.

Presumably just causes the menu to be loaded or displayed. Wonder if its lockfile would screw up deleting it.

com.apple.ubd.plist

No idea, but it has an entry "sync.client" with p2p enabled and a polling interval seconds of 3600.

com.apple.WorkgroupManager.plist

Like Server Admin, no doubt for running local copy of Workgroup Manager to administer the server.

I'm wondering if just deleting some or all of these files might do the trick. Afraid to screw something up, though.

I have always had (at least) 2 user accounts on the MacBook Pro, one for personal and one for work. Both have admin privileges. It's the work account that has the problem, because it's the only one set up via OS X Server with a "portable home directory".

Just to recap: OS X Server has (or at least used to have) this feature that kept 2 copies of your home directory: one on the server, and another copy on your laptop. The idea was that you could take the laptop on the road, and when you came home it would automatically sync any changes you had made on the laptop files to the server's copy. You could also log into the server from another Mac to access your files.

Even though my server is long gone, the laptop still keeps trying to sync with it when I'm logged into the work account. I have been trying literally for years to make it stop, but can't find any information about how to do it.

Hmm. Nothing looks likely except these in /System/Library/LaunchDaemons:

-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 457 Oct 24 22:24 com.apple.ManagedClient.plist

-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 585 Oct 24 22:24 com.apple.ManagedClient.startup.plist

Here's the contents of com.apple.ManagedClient.plist:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">

<plist version="1.0">

<dict>

<key>Label</key>

<string>com.apple.ManagedClient</string>

<key>Program</key>

<string>/System/Library/CoreServices/ManagedClient.app/Contents/MacOS/Mana gedClient</string>

<key>MachServices</key>

<dict>

<key>com.apple.ManagedClient.agent</key>

<true/>

</dict>

</dict>

</plist>

and here is com.apple.ManagedClient.startup.plist:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">

<plist version="1.0">

<dict>

<key>Label</key>

<string>com.apple.ManagedClient.startup</string>

<key>ProgramArguments</key>

<array>

<string>/System/Library/CoreServices/ManagedClient.app/Contents/MacOS /ManagedClient</string>

<string>-i</string>

</array>

<key>MachServices</key>

<dict>

<key>com.apple.ManagedClient.startup</key>

<true/>

</dict>

<key>LaunchOnlyOnce</key>

<true/>

<key>RunAtLoad</key>

<true/>

</dict>

</plist>

Note that both of these reference /System/Library/CoreServices/ManagedClient.app

which I suspect must have something to do with this. But I don't see it or anything that seems related in the list of running processes.

Aargh. I moved those files to a desktop folder and rebooted. IT'S STILL HAPPENING! Waaaaaah!

When I select "Show sync status" from that accursed menulet, it says:

Checking "~/"

for a while before giving up.

Incidentally, when I go to the "Accounts" pref pane for this user account on the laptop and select "mobile preferences", there is a menu of options for when/how often to sync the account with the server. The option "every 41 minutes" is checked, and all the other options are grayed out. The explanation is that when I set up the mobile account on the server, I told it to sync every 41 minutes, and the laptop still thinks it's being ruled by the server settings. The problem is that trying to undo this on the server doesn't work.