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Moved User Folder to External... Is this bad?

ItsAShaunParty

ItsAShaunParty

macrumors member
Original poster
Jun 20, 2013
45
5
Feel free to skip to the TL;DR.

I am on a iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2020)
3.8 GHz 8-Core Intel Core i7 72 Gb Ram
512 GB HD
Running Monterey 12.5.1

I bought this iMac with the intention to replace the HD, not realizing that Apple was soldering this one down. I didn't realize that it was near impossible until it was too late. It's been a few years and the HD is super crowded. I am left with a single choice: I am moving my home folder to an external.

I've read some other posts. A lot of people try to talk others out of this. I wish I could avoid it, but right now, I can't. So I want to make sure I do it in the safest possible manner.

How does this sound:
  1. Log into a user account with admin access (not the account I want to transfer)
  2. Using Carbon Copy, I copied the user folder of the account I want to transfer (/Users/[USERNAME]) to a new location on an external
  3. Open System Preferences
  4. Go to Users & Groups
  5. Click the padlock and authenticate
  6. Right (or control) click on the username to move and select "Advanced Options.."
  7. Click on the "Choose..." button and point it to the new location
  8. My next step was going to be to delete the information from /Users/[USERNAME]
I logged in and everything seemed fine. Until I received an iMessage from my brother. Meessages did not recognize his phone number.

I'll admit, this isn't cause for panic. Except I started to think, "What else could be wrong!?" I didn't want to start to make changes to a home folder in a new location only to find out that some things didn't transfer and have to start to try to clean that mess. So I switched it back. And here I am.

TL;DR
  1. I moved my home folder to an external drive and Messages didn't recognize my contacts. Why would that be?
  2. Is this cause for concern or normal?
  3. Am I overreacting?
  4. Is it something simple like I didn't sign back into iCloud after logging in using the new location (I just thought of this now)?*

Thanks!

*If it is something this dumb, I figured I'd still post this because someone else may find it helpful.
 
Last edited:
It seems to be this Mac: https://everymac.com/systems/apple/...-3.8-8-core-27-inch-retina-5k-2020-specs.html

lostPod said:
Why not move the whole drive to external SSD and boot from that drive ?
Click to expand...
Well, one reason is it ships with an SSD which is much faster than any external storage.

ItsAShaunParty said:
I moved my home folder to an external drive and Messages didn't recognize my contacts. Why would that be?
Click to expand...
I don't know, really. The steps you took seem to be logical. One thing I'm wondering is if you set the external drive to NOT "ignore ownership on this drive" before you did the CCC copy? I'd think you'd want to do this so other accounts (if any) wouldn't be able to access your files on the external.

(That said, I can't think why have "ignore ownership on this drive" checked would prevent Messages from accessing your Contacts.)
 
Brian33 said:
Well, one reason is it ships with an SSD which is much faster than any external storage.
Click to expand...
True but in practice an external Thunderbolt drive will seem very close. External Thunderbolt supports TRIM and SMART, and is seen by macOS as (completely?) equivalent to an internal.

I had an iMac with a 256GB SSD and looked into this issue for the same reason as the OP. I never got further than deciding the full external Thunderbolt drive was my preferred option before outside events caused me to give it to my son and buy a new Silicon Mac for myself.
 
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Not sure if you have issue or not, but I can see trouble if your external drive becomes unavailable somehow. When I had to solve similar trouble with small internal drive, I moved large folders from home folder to external drive and simply created links to those folders with appropriate names. I moved Music/Video and Photos (which can easily run from other location) and all worked just fine.
Keep in mind, that you have hidden files in home folder and whole hidden Library with lots of important stuff and if that becomes unavailable, bad things happen. Missing Music? No problem ;-)
 
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It's NOT a good idea to be moving one's home folder, unless one really REALLY knows what they're doing.

Things can start breaking or not working as expected...
 
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Even though you did something that seems completely reasonable and you did it well, Apple's rigid design will often sabotage you when you do something slightly out of the norm.

@Brian33's point about ownership seems plausible. Apple is a stickler for security; perhaps full functionality is only possible with "Owners" enabled (as displayed in Disk Utility). On the other hand, Apple is a stickler for security; perhaps you shouldn't move your home folder. You seem to be in a position to undo that since you haven't deleted the original folder.
 
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ItsAShaunParty said:
I can't get this to work. It's very frustrating.
Click to expand...

So, you say the 512GB drive is really full. Have you considered just moving the bulky content to the external drive and leaving your home folder in its default location?

If you're technical (sounds like you are), you could even mount an external volume somewhere under your home folder, so that it could be kind of transparent to you (e.g. ~/bigstuff). I do that all the time on Windows and Linux. My understanding is that the approach would be similar to that on Linux, using /etc/fstab.
 
svenmany said:
So, you say the 512GB drive is really full. Have you considered just moving the bulky content to the external drive and leaving your home folder in its default location?

If you're technical (sounds like you are), you could even mount an external volume somewhere under your home folder, so that it could be kind of transparent to you (e.g. ~/bigstuff). I do that all the time on Windows and Linux. My understanding is that the approach would be similar to that on Linux, using /etc/fstab.
Click to expand...
You could even use symlinks to the external content, while keeping the home folder on the base drive (which is what I have done with BSD unix in the diiiiistant past.
 
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eltoslightfoot said:
You could even use symlinks to the external content, while keeping the home folder on the base drive (which is what I have done with BSD unix in the diiiiistant past.
Click to expand...
TV and Music have built in provision for specifying their media on an external drive, and Photos libraries can exist anywhere ....without use of symlinks.

iPhone and iPad backups can be large and exist in the home folder by default but can easily be located on an external with a symlink.
 
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Mike Boreham said:
TV and Music have built in provision for specifying their media on an external drive, and Photos libraries can exist anywhere ....without use of symlinks.

iPhone and iPad backups can be large and exist in the home folder by default but can easily be located on an external with a symlink.
Click to expand...
No argument here, but it would work...Personally I have just used external folders for these things and pointed the apps where needed (like adding an extra folder to music...)
 
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I have close to 500 GB in Documents. Everything else pales in comparison.

The first step is to figure out where the large content is. I use DaisyDisk when I want a clear picture of things.

Regarding symbolic links instead of mounting a volume --- doh! Why didn't I think of the simple answer first!?! Symbolic links are inadequate for some of the things I do, but I expect I'm not the norm.
 
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svenmany said:
I have close to 500 GB in Documents. Everything else pales in comparison.

The first step is to figure out where the large content is. I use DaisyDisk when I want a clear picture of things.

Regarding symbolic links instead of mounting a volume --- doh! Why didn't I think of the simple answer first!?! Symbolic links are inadequate for some of the things I do, but I expect I'm not the norm.
Click to expand...
Well, you would still need to mount the volume for the symbolic link to work, I think. (It's been a while...)
 
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eltoslightfoot said:
Well, you would still need to mount the volume for the symbolic link to work, I think. (It's been a while...)
Click to expand...

Yeah. I spoke loosely. I should have written "Regarding symbolic links instead of mounting a volume at a convenient location". So, ~/bigstuff could be a symbolic link or a volume mount point. In both cases the volume has to be mounted.

I find symbolic links a bit of a challenge when using Finder, especially so since I work in list view with subdirectories frequently expanded. Symbolic links don't expand (unless I'm missing a setting somewhere).
 
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svenmany said:
Yeah. I spoke loosely. I should have written "Regarding symbolic links instead of mounting a volume at a convenient location". So, ~/bigstuff could be a symbolic link or a volume mount point. In both cases the volume has to be mounted.

I find symbolic links a bit of a challenge when using Finder, especially so since I work in list view with subdirectories frequently expanded. Symbolic links don't expand (unless I'm missing a setting somewhere).
Click to expand...
No that is true, you have to go into the folder to see the contents, I believe.
 
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I just tried this again.

Very strange. My contacts didn't transfer. I know I could export them and plug them in pretty easily. I'm just wondering what else may be missing. Where does macOS store contacts?
 
ItsAShaunParty said:
I just tried this again.

Very strange. My contacts didn't transfer. I know I could export them and plug them in pretty easily. I'm just wondering what else may be missing. Where does macOS store contacts?
Click to expand...
As far as I know, iCloud. ;) Otherwise I think you have to manually export and import?
 
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