Backup and delete old admin user account

Question

Backup and delete old admin user account

Hi. An Apple Advisor (level 2) helped me to clean my Mavericks system, among other actions he asked me to create a new admin user. I think it's time to delete the old one, but Mavericks don't agree the backing up of the old user account (Home) before deleting it.

- I tried to find all files with Old-User ownership and change their permissions to the New owner. But Mavericks still say no.

The .dmg is created but not kept.

Why I want to do that ? An unknown and unwanted app is probably running backwards, I can't find it and delete it on this cleaned install...

it like a windows manager app. like "size up". I will look in the process manager.

Don't blame me about my language please, The "Apple Support Communities" does'nt deal with French. Alas

iMac, OS X Mavericks (10.9.1), Apple care mid 2011

Posted on Dec 29, 2013 6:36 AM

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Answer 1

Phil-CB

Level 1

115 points

Dec 29, 2013 6:41 AM in response to FrenchAlain55

Is it important that you keep the old user's home folder, or would it be OK to trash it ?

Est-il important de conserver le home folder de l'ancien utilisateur, ou bien peut-il etre supprimé ?

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Answer 2

Dec 29, 2013 7:25 AM in response to Phil-CB

I would like to keep it in its inactive form of the .dmg file otherwise it would be already gone. Afraid of loosing some important setting files.

Je tiens à le garder au moins inactif dans un fichier dmg, sinon il serait déjà parti sans problème, je pense. Trop peur de perdre des réglages importants

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Answer 3

Phil-CB

Level 1

115 points

Dec 29, 2013 7:44 AM in response to FrenchAlain55

Sure, should've read your title more carefully.

Well, if you think the issue is related to permissions, I would first suggest to reset permissions and ACLs for that user:

- restart you system on the Recovery partition (holding CMD + R during boot)

- once booted, select your language

- in the menu bar, select "Tools" -> Terminal

- in Terminal, enter "resetpassword" then hit enter

- in the Reset Password Utility, select your drive, then select the user that has issues

- do not enter a new password, just click the Reset ACL button at the buttom.

- restart your system and test again the deletion

If this does not help, I would suggest to make a manual copy of the home folder using Terminal

cp /Users/old_user_name /Users/new_user_name/Desktop/old_user_backup/

Then try to delete the user & erase its home folder.

Need a French version ? just ask 😉

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Answer 4

Phil-CB

Level 1

115 points

Dec 29, 2013 7:57 AM in response to FrenchAlain55

You could also use the following in order to create a dmg file out of the old user's home folder:

hdiutil create-format UDZO-srcfolder /Users/old_user_folder ~/Desktop/old_user_backup.dmg

(if you're logged in from the new admin user, of course)

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Answer 5

Dec 29, 2013 8:12 AM in response to FrenchAlain55

I'm reading and maybe grabbing ideas here

How to change user account name or home directory name for Mac OS X v10.5 or later. (Not my issue but could help too )

Enabling the root user is a good way, already done by the Apple Advisor 🙂

Enable the root user.
Log in as root.
Navigate to the /Users folder. Select the Home folder with the short name you want to change
…
After verifying that your data is as expected, you can delete the original user account via the Users & Groups pane.
Disable the root user.

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Answer 6

Dec 29, 2013 11:05 AM in response to FrenchAlain55

It's a problem of alias that cancel the dmg creation ( in application support ) numerous alias are blocking the command.

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Answer 7

Dec 30, 2013 3:53 AM in response to FrenchAlain55

One after the others, I deleted those annoying alias. The image disk finally done ( with your command Phil-CB ) I'm writing here with my iPad ;) Now I think I'm going to call my favorite (lol) apple advisor since we are Monday, I will let him finish his job ( task ) on my iMac himself.

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Answer 8

Dec 30, 2013 4:32 AM in response to FrenchAlain55

FYI : before deleting user account, the automatic creation of the dmg file is not working ( from system pref, user account prefpane ) even after cleaning aliases. Does this feature worked for any another MacUser ? It probably is a matter of rights.

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Answer 9

Phil-CB

Level 1

115 points

Jan 11, 2014 12:46 AM in response to FrenchAlain55

You mean, the creation of a dmg file containing the user folder (like shown on the second screenshot in your first post) ?

Well, I can remember it failed once for me (in OS X Leopard, if I remember well). But I had to use that feature several times in the past, and it usually works quite well ...

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Answer 10

Jan 11, 2014 2:04 AM in response to Phil-CB

Yes that feature . I should try on a brand new user account

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