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switching home folders between users

I have two users on may mac mini running High Sierra - a main user (let's call it A) & a temporary user set up for the purposes of investigating a problem that I have in user A (let's call it B).

The a problem with user A does not manifest itself in user B.

All my data is linked to user A whereas there is no data linked to user B.

To solve the problem I am considering switching the home folder of user A to user B.

After making sure that all data is backed up I propose to rename the home folder for user B temporarily to X

Then I will rename the home folder for user A to B

Finally I will rename the home folder X to A.

User B would then become my main user and I could delete user A.

I would appreciate any advice or guidance on the feasibility/wisdom of this approach.

Mac mini, macOS High Sierra (10.13.2), Late 2014 2.6 GHz, 8GByte RAM

Posted on Dec 13, 2017 1:03 PM

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14 replies

Dec 13, 2017 2:44 PM in response to El Morche

If you right click on either account A or B and click on advanced a warning message appears changing the name may damage the account , don't change the names , whatever account you delete see the steps in the article macOS Sierra: Delete a user or group

For an admin account select last option .

  1. Delete a sharing-only user or a group: Click OK.

  2. Click Delete User.

Dec 13, 2017 2:30 PM in response to El Morche

One more thing to suggest is to "sign out" of your iCloud Accounts before changing the local account names.


In the other post that you mentioned regarding EyeTV, you didn't completely finish troubleshooting. Fixing whatever is wrong is a lot more preferable than exchanging User Accounts, which is certain to be time-consuming at the very least.


No Sound from Eyetv


Unless you identify and correct the underlying problem it's likely to return, even if you switch the Home folders as you propose.

Dec 13, 2017 1:12 PM in response to El Morche

Before you go to that effort, troubleshoot your problem user. Many problems are related to Login Items, so go to System Preferences > Users & Groups and remove all Login Items using the ➖ button. (You can always add them back with the ➕). Other problems arise from corrupt preferences files. If you let us know the nature of the problems we can help you more.


If you really want to move to the new account you'll want to make it an Admin account and move the contents of your folders (with the exception of ~/Library since it is more likely to contain corrupt files) into your Shared folder and then into the new user.

Dec 13, 2017 2:24 PM in response to macjack

Macjack


Many Thanks for your prompt reply.


I have already tried all the things that you suggest but without success. I did start another thread about the problem - I use EyeTV and since a recent update I am getting no sound from live tv or recordings. As part of my investigations I set up a new user and configured EyeTV to work and found that there was no problem with the sound. I've also tried deleting and restoring my main user but the problem persists. Only EyeTV is affected as I can get sound with iTunes and Youtube etc.


It's only as a last resort that I am considering what I have proposed in my original post. If you have any idea of which file might be corrupt perhaps you could point me in the right direction.

Dec 13, 2017 2:44 PM in response to El Morche

In that other Discussion you wrote:


El Morche wrote:


If you think it would be of use I can do an Etrecheck report in both my main user and the guest user and post the results.


Comparing those two reports is likely to reveal a difference between the two User Accounts. The other suggestions were valid but they didn't help, so try it.

switching home folders between users

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