Re: How to migrate things from one OS X account to another

In the message "[MAGNet] How to migrate things from one OS X account
to ano", dated 2005-03-15, Gary Hsueh wrote:

>Hi, I'm looking for the easiest way to migrate a person's Safari
>bookmarks, Address Book contacts, iCalendars, Mail mailboxes, etc.
>from one admin account to a new admin account on a computer. The
>computer was formerly set up as a single login, but will now be used
>by several people. Can I just drag and drop files from one user
>Library to another, or am I going to run into permissions problems?
>This only needs to be a one-time thing. I've performed a cursory
>search of the topic, but I don't see much online...any advice?

   Are you contemplating copying several directories contained within
a user's home directory, say /Users/userone, into a different user
home directory, say /Users/usertwo, on the same Mac OS X host? Or
will you be copying those directories into a different user home
directory on another bootable volume on that same host, or even to a
user home directory on a different host?

   If the former, you can copy (and later delete - safer than moving
outright) those directories to the new user home directory, then
batch-update the ownership and permissions of the directories and
files you've just moved into /Users/usertwo - if and as needed -
using a tool like Batchmod (donationware)
<http://macchampion.com/arbysoft/> or via command-line utilities such
as chown and chmod, where applicable with their recursive options
selected.

   Obviously, you'll need to use care when doing so. When you're
copying a mix of directories and files created manually by the user
and automatically by various applications and system utilities, it's
possible, even likely, they might not all have uniform ownership and
permissions. However, it's also possible that the vast majority of
these may likely be amendable to batch updating.

   If what you wish to do is to copy a user's home directory to
another volume on the same computer (such as a prospective new Mac OS
X boot volume), or another host whose disk(s) you can mount from the
original host, such as via FireWire Target Disk mode, two options
include:

   - Apple's System Migration tool, bundled with some newer Mac models
   - SuperDuper (shareware) <http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/>
     (there may be a script included with this utility for "cloning"
     users' home directories)

   Finally, if part of what you're really trying to do is rename,
rejigger, or otherwise muck with user accounts, as well as groups and
their memberships, under Mac OS X, you can either do this - to the
limited extent allowed - via the Accounts or Users preferences panel
in System Preferences, or you can use NetInfo Manager (scary!) or
User Manager (freeware)
<http://www.avalon.net/~tmcintos/software/UserManager/index.html>, a
tool that is more intuitive and less scary (but still can mess up
your system if you aren't careful).

Aron Roberts
Workstation Software Support Group

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Received on Tue Mar 15 14:49:42 2005