Adding existing user accounts to (clean) 10.11 installation?

[macstatic]

I've got several user accounts which I've used with 10.9 Mavericks but recently did a clean install of 10.11 on a different SSD (which allowed me to test out 10.11 before finally commiting) and now I'd like to "attach" those user accounts to 10.11 for permanent use. I assume this means I might have to remove access to them from 10.9, but either way that's OK.

10.9 Mavericks (and my apps) is on another SSD, and my users is on yet another hard drive. They're all inside my mid-2010 Mac Pro, and both booting into 10.9 or 10.11 works fine.

A few years ago I separated my user accounts from OSX/my apps by following this method of "relinking" the user folders within the Accounts system preference after copying it to the other drive, but how do I go about "linking" my existing users to the new OS?

 

[macstatic]

Anyone have a solution to this (or can point me to somewhere else)?

 

[allan.nyholm]

I've only just now seen your thread. Anyway, I don't know if you've toyed with the idea of using symbolic links for your accounts? I've only done what you link to once or twice(moving the whole Home folder off) and have returned to using symbolic links and keeping big data on the internal HDD in my iMac and macOS Catalina(and also earlier) on the SSD. I used to an advocate for fusing ssd with hdd on non-factory Fusion Apple computers. I've been using symbolic links now for a while.

What's your strategy for getting it all in working order besides all this? You eventually want to rid yourself of the Mavericks partition/drive and have all Applications and Home-folder content on the OS X El Capitan drive? This isn't the worst - your ~Library and ~/Library/Application Support folder sometimes can be transferred between Macs but I think you'll be left with some options being reset.

Am I not understanding correctly? Please elaborate more if you feel like it.

Edit: I think I might have misunderstood some things.

 

[macstatic]

Thanks for replying. I'll try to explain below.
A symbolic link: that's sort of like an alias/shortcut, right? A reference to something located somewhere else?

I'm assuming that means I have to have both a user created the usual OSX way (add a new user using the "User and groups" system preference) and also a user (with the same name) somewhere else. The latter being the one actually containing the files.
But I'd prefer only to have a single user folder on my computer, to avoid any confusion later on.

Am I not understanding correctly? Please elaborate more if you feel like it.
Edit: I think I might have misunderstood some things.

Here's what I'm trying to do, and why:
I've been using OSX 10.9.5 (Mavericks) for years and set up a clean installation back then. I also read this article from the Mac performance guide: relocating the Home directory off the boot drive which seemed like a smart solution (and I wouldn't have room for my files on the SSD anyway), so I followed the guide and now have my user's home folders on a large hard drive. It's worked great!

But... I recently found out I had to upgrade my OS because of incompatibilities with my new iPad, so I've left my 10.9.5 Mavericks SSD alone and installed 10.11 El Capitan on another SSD inside my Mac Pro (normally used as a Photoshop scratch disk).
Once the 10.11 setup is fully working (all my apps working etc.) I will probably erase the 10.9.5 SSD, but until then it's nice to have as a backup option during a transition period.

My problem is that although 10.11 appears to work nicely, and I've reinstalled most of my apps on that SSD I can't access my files (and app settings, stored within that same user).

 

[dsemf]

Are the numeric user ids the same?

Try

ls -ln (el es space dash el n)

DS

 

[macstatic]

Are the numeric user ids the same?

You mean between the original User profiles within OSX 10.9.5 and the ones (with the same names) created in OSX 10.11? I'll check and get back to you on that.

Try

ls -ln (el es space dash el n)

Before I proceed; what exactly does that do, is there any risk in messing things up and will it allow access from both OSX versions, or will I need to only stick with 10.11 after proceeding?
Never mind. I read too quickly, but understand it just lists up all my symbolic links, right? Yes, I do get several files and folders listed with the above. What should I look for?

 

[dsemf]

You mean between the original User profiles within OSX 10.9.5 and the ones (with the same names) created in OSX 10.11? I'll check and get back to you on that.



Before I proceed; what exactly does that do, is there any risk in messing things up and will it allow access from both OSX versions, or will I need to only stick with 10.11 after proceeding?
Never mind. I read too quickly, but understand it just lists up all my symbolic links, right? Yes, I do get several files and folders listed with the above. What should I look for?

The output shows the numeric owner and group for each file/directory.

-rw-r--r--    1 502  20 ...

In this example, the owner id is 502 with a group id of 20. The owner has read/write authority (rw) while group members and everyone only have read authority (r).

Use the id command to get information about the logged on user.

uid=502(xyz) gid=20(staff) groups=20(staff) ...

This shows the user's id, default group and additional groups.

This is the basis of UNIX security.

I suspect that the same user names in 10.9.5 and 10.11 have different user ids.

DS

 

[macstatic]

Hmmmm....
this looks to become a complicated and risky process and got me thinking.....
How about I:

1) (within 10.9.5) I rename all the current users' folders (i.e change "Macuser" to "Macuser_old") as described in this guide from Apple.
2) reboot into 10.11 and create all the users with the names I really want (i.e. "Macuser") the standard way ("users & groups" system preference) on my boot-SSD
3) still in 10.11, copy the user folders one by one (following the Mac performace guide on relocating the home folders) from the SSD over to the hard drive (where my current users are now).
4) test that the new users work as they should
5) copy (or rather move because of limited space on the hard drive) all the files and folders from the old (i.e. "Macuser_old" folder to the "Macuser" folder) on the same hard drive. I believe I can do that by holding down ALT while performing a drag & drop.

Although time consuming, does this sound like a solution?

When copying (or moving) files between the old and new home folders, how should I go about so as not to run into permission issues? I assume I would have to log into a different user than the one I'm moving files between, and an admin at that but in my experience even this has given me alerts that I don't have permission etc.

And how do I keep aliases from breaking when I do all of this?

 

[allan.nyholm]

It's all a bit too complicated for just a trial run of El Capitan.. trial is an using it like you mention. To see if you are updating from current OS X Mavericks. I would have stayed on Mavericks if I could but no applications I use now really work there anymore as the requirements have gone up to at least 10.13.6

It seems to me that using symbolic links to have your El Capitan read off of the Mavericks partition is a solution that's worth it rather than all this. But, you'll lose all settings available in

~/Library/Application Support/

and as such you'll have to take time to extract what you feel is useful for you while you figure out El Capitan 10.11.


My goto option for all this is (I have macOS Catalina on an external SSD attached to my iMac via Thunderbolt since I have a 7200 RPM internal HDD that I don't want to boot off of

In two Terminal windows I do this for each home folder(Movies, Pictures, Music, Downloads)

Because I've already copied all my personal stuff to the internal Macintosh HD I can delete the empty Home folders using the following. You'll have to be alert and make sure that you don't delete all your personal files.

First Terminal window has this step

sudo rm -rf ~/Music/

then the second open Terminal window has this command ready for all the actual symlink action

ln -s /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/Users/allan/Music/ ~/Music

Note that just for viewing I called the user folder on the internal drive the same as it would be had I just contained all my personal files on the SSD boot drive. But since I have so much data to fit on the SSD I use symlinks to have macOS think nothing is wrong when saving to the Downloads folder or requesting my Music library. I still have the Application Support folder with all the files that Applications create - Sketch etc. Whatever one might use.

Internal drive for me is called Macintosh HD and the boot is Macintosh SSD which is really original and all.

Ideally you have to have an external backup drive for your stuff - because stuff is going to probably happen.

I would also personally never venture out into moving the entire Home folder again(I have once or twice). Keep the fastest drive available for your Application Support files and the entire ~/Library hierachy

 

[macstatic]

It's all a bit too complicated for just a trial run of El Capitan.. trial is an using it like you mention.

No, no!
It's no longer a trial run, which is why I want to begin using it, but with my user folders as before of course.
I tried out 10.11, 10.12 and 10.13 but the last one wouldn't let me use som older software I use, and 10.12 seemed more "bloated" than 10.11, so 10.11 it is.

I agree that for a trial run it's too much work.

It seems to me that using symbolic links to have your El Capitan read off of the Mavericks partition is a solution that's worth it rather than all this. But, you'll lose all settings available in

~/Library/Application Support/

and as such you'll have to take time to extract what you feel is useful for you while you figure out El Capitan 10.11.

I have lots of stuff in there that I don't want to continue using. The same for settings and other files within my /Library/ folder, so I will probably spend some time transferring it all.

My goto option for all this is (I have macOS Catalina on an external SSD attached to my iMac via Thunderbolt since I have a 7200 RPM internal HDD that I don't want to boot off of

I don't understand fully how that symbolic link thing works, but will read more upon it before proceeding. Will that solution keep all my aliases/shortcuts too?

I suppose shortcuts will be broken if I simply copy/move the folders and files over to another user folder. Maybe there's a tool somewhere (or a UNIX command) for quickly fixing them.

Ideally you have to have an external backup drive for your stuff - because stuff is going to probably happen.

Absolutely! Yes, I have two different backups of my stuff on two different drives.

I would also personally never venture out into moving the entire Home folder again(I have once or twice). Keep the fastest drive available for your Application Support files and the entire ~/Library hierachy

That's something I hadn't thought about, and sounds like a good idea except for the folder size which in my case is around 40 GB. And my entired boot SSD is 128 GB. Currently, my 10.9.5 boot SSD (OSX and apps) only has around 14 GB free, and when everything is completely re-installed (all my apps) on the other boot SSD (10.11) I figure it'll be around the same.