Ziatron
Level 4 (3,924 points)
Apple Watch

Q: Troubles after changing OS X user account name and home folder name

I followed Apple's procedure for changing OS X user account name and home folder name.

 

Change the OS X user account name and home folder name on your Mac - Apple Support

 

I accomplished this with little fuss, until...... I tried to use DropBox.  DropBox continues to want to use my previous home folder name.  So I deleted ALL of my dropbox stuff,  I un-linked my computer from my DropBox account and attempted to start fresh.   It didn't work, it still tries to use my old home folder name.

 

I follow the procedure below.

 

https://www.dropboxforum.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/204345275-Changed-Home-Fol der-Name-Dropbox-not-working?input_strin…

 

No joy.   So, I decided to search my Mac using EasyFind, for my OLD home folder name.   I found that old name incorporated into many things. Things like, "crash reports", "logs",  "plist", "wakeups_resource.diag", and some other miscellaneous gobbledygook.

 

I just don't know how, (or if) I can clean this up.

Posted on Jun 20, 2016 9:27 PM

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Q: Troubles after changing OS X user account name and home folder name

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  • by Niel,

    Niel Niel Jun 20, 2016 9:27 PM in response to Ziatron
    Level 10 (312,035 points)
    Jun 20, 2016 9:27 PM in response to Ziatron

    Move the plist files which contain it to another location, or use a product such as TextWrangler to change the instances of it to the new name. You may also need to do this for other types of files, but not the logs or crash reports.

     

    (143028)

  • by Ziatron,

    Ziatron Ziatron Jun 20, 2016 9:40 PM in response to Niel
    Level 4 (3,924 points)
    Apple Watch
    Jun 20, 2016 9:40 PM in response to Niel

    I did download TextWrangler, as well as the 280 page manual!  I think this is way over my head.

     

    When I search for the old home folder name with, "EasyFind" it has a option called, "Reveal in Finder".  I did this with one plist, and successfully changed it to the new name. 


    Any reason why can't continue with this slower, but easier for me process?

  • by Niel,

    Niel Niel Jun 20, 2016 9:44 PM in response to Ziatron
    Level 10 (312,035 points)
    Jun 20, 2016 9:44 PM in response to Ziatron

    Open all the plists, choose Multi-File Search from the Search menu, and check the box for Open Text Documents.

     

    (143030)

  • by Ziatron,

    Ziatron Ziatron Jun 20, 2016 9:51 PM in response to Niel
    Level 4 (3,924 points)
    Apple Watch
    Jun 20, 2016 9:51 PM in response to Niel

    Using EasyFind ?

  • by Niel,

    Niel Niel Jun 20, 2016 9:53 PM in response to Ziatron
    Level 10 (312,035 points)
    Jun 20, 2016 9:53 PM in response to Ziatron

    In TextWrangler, once you've found all of the plists with EasyFind.

     

    (143031)

  • by Ziatron,

    Ziatron Ziatron Jun 20, 2016 10:15 PM in response to Niel
    Level 4 (3,924 points)
    Apple Watch
    Jun 20, 2016 10:15 PM in response to Niel

    Open all the plists, choose Multi-File Search from the Search menu, and check the box for Open Text Documents.

     

    Done.  "Found one occurrence"  ( I think there are more than one.)

  • by nider,

    nider nider Jun 20, 2016 10:53 PM in response to Ziatron
    Level 1 (9 points)
    Jun 20, 2016 10:53 PM in response to Ziatron

    The key should be removing the hidden ".dropbox" folder that lives in your home folder.

     

    I've seen this exact same issue with a couple of people in the last few weeks, in each case removing the ".dropbox" folder resolved the issue.

     

    This step was mentioned in the article you linked:

     

    * Remove the folder in your home directory called ".dropbox", which contains the local configuration of the dropbox client. You can do this from Finder, or you can open your terminal and run "rm -rf ~/.dropbox"

     

    I'd try that again, log out and back in again to your account, and see if that fixes it. As Finder doesn't show hidden files by default, I'd copy and paste that command into Terminal.