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migrate user settings from one user to another on SAME machine?
- Thread starter buggz
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Use TimeMachine, create a backup and restore the backup to a different user.
You can copy /Users/OldUser/Library/Preferences to get most preferences copied over. You'll need to make sure the permissions are correct, and I personally would look through the preferences files and make sure each one is one I want. I wouldn't copy over ones with Apple ID specific information, even if you plan on using the same ID it's really no benefit to have that kind of duplicated data which could cause issues.
If you want specific preferences copied over, tell us, we might be able to give you more specific advice.
If you want specific preferences copied over, tell us, we might be able to give you more specific advice.
Thanks, I have a user profile corruption issue, I generated a new user via cli to confirm.
My original user can only see two System Settings menu items, General, and Spotlight.
General sub menu only shows autofill & passwords.
So, I am guessing, if I copy these settings to the new user, which works, it shows ALL System Settings menu items, it too will become corrupt?
I wonder if I can force an update of 15.7, if that would work better?
I say force, as that is what the system is on, 15.7 M4 Mac Mini Pro.
Otherwise, the original user is working, but not being able to get to System Settings is a real bummer.
And to build out the new user to reflect the orginal user, will be LOTS of work, though, is possibly my best recourse?
Sigh...
My original user can only see two System Settings menu items, General, and Spotlight.
General sub menu only shows autofill & passwords.
So, I am guessing, if I copy these settings to the new user, which works, it shows ALL System Settings menu items, it too will become corrupt?
I wonder if I can force an update of 15.7, if that would work better?
I say force, as that is what the system is on, 15.7 M4 Mac Mini Pro.
Otherwise, the original user is working, but not being able to get to System Settings is a real bummer.
And to build out the new user to reflect the orginal user, will be LOTS of work, though, is possibly my best recourse?
Sigh...
Forcing reinstall of the same system may not be as helpful as it used to be. Current macOS system is installed on separate partition and sealed, so OS is most likely not corrupted. There could be some cleanup done in each user folder, but if you have something corrupted there, it will likely survive.
Copying configuration from corrupted user to new user is asking for troubles. Likely will copy the corruption. Moving data is fine, you need to make sure permissions are right and data will be fine.
I would search on line for how to fix corrupted preferences in macOS. It is likely someone figured out which plist to delete to reset this. But makes me wonder if you did not accidentally switched this profile to guest user mode. That user has pretty much 0 powers, its System Settings may be very limited. You would need to log in as admin user and figure out if the user you are using is standard user...
Copying configuration from corrupted user to new user is asking for troubles. Likely will copy the corruption. Moving data is fine, you need to make sure permissions are right and data will be fine.
I would search on line for how to fix corrupted preferences in macOS. It is likely someone figured out which plist to delete to reset this. But makes me wonder if you did not accidentally switched this profile to guest user mode. That user has pretty much 0 powers, its System Settings may be very limited. You would need to log in as admin user and figure out if the user you are using is standard user...
Creating a new user profile can be a good troubleshooting step, but I'm curious about why you would do it via a terminal command vs just using the Users & Groups panel in Settings. I don't know a ton about it, but I do know there are lots of weird issues that can arise with permissions if you're not careful. If it was me, I'd do everything by the book.
Honestly, if it was me, I'd start fresh. Make sure everything is backed up, use the built in tools to reset everything, then migrate in whatever data you need using Migration Assistant. I'm with @Honza1 above, and suspect your user account somehow was created or turned into a guest user account or something.
If you don't have a ton of stuff set up, I'd just create a brand new user and then selectively rebuild the account using the data from your backup.
Sometimes... it's just best to set up the new account "manually", one item-at-a-time.
Like you would do with any other account...
Like you would do with any other account...
Delete:
Code:
~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.systempreferences.plist
~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.systemsettings.extensions.plist
~/Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.systempreferences.*
~/Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.systemsettings.extensions.*
~/Library/Caches/com.apple.preferencepanes.usercache
~/Library/Caches/com.apple.systemsettings.menucache
~/Library/Group Containers/com.apple.systempreferences.cache
~/Library/Containers/com.apple.systempreferences/ (will be called "System Settings" in Finder)There is probably more you can delete if that does not resolve the issue. You can find them with
Code:
find ~/Library -name "com.apple.systempref*"
find ~/Library -name "com.apple.systemsettings*"Can you simply copy the original to a unique filename?
Thus making a backup file, then delete the the original.
And if need to, recover from the backup file, coping to the original name?
cp -pv ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.systempreferences.plist ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.systempreferences.plist.original
Thus making a backup file, then delete the the original.
And if need to, recover from the backup file, coping to the original name?
cp -pv ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.systempreferences.plist ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.systempreferences.plist.original
You can make backups, but system will make default plists if it does not find them. This has been always easy way to reset system settings to default - if you knew what the plist name and location is.
And since things simply do not work, not sure backup will be useful, but cannot hurt.
And since things simply do not work, not sure backup will be useful, but cannot hurt.