This is right but I think issue is that you cannot sync with iCloud if it is in an external files. For photos this is not an issue though.
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Moving Home Folder to External for those getting the 256GB Base Model
- Thread starter ravinder08
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So I tried moving my home folder to an external drive and failed miserably. Apparently, Apple does not provide the option of moving it to a FileVault encrypted external drive. When I tried to login, it just gave me the spinny logo for a while and then said that an error occurred. I even had the password for the external drive in my keychain but I guess it can't access the keychain because it's in the home folder on the encrypted drive. Chicken or the egg situation. That<s too bad. I don't want to use an non encrypted external drive. Going to have to find an alternative.
I tried installing Open Core Legacy Patcher on a friend’s encrypted SSD and couldn’t get it to work either. I took it to mean that if you need an encrypted drive you’re looking for next-level security — so if it’s non-standard it won’t work. Fair trade-off I guess.
I have no insider information, but only a prognostication based on the past trends that we've already seen.
I predict that -- as Apple moves to reshape the "Mac OS" into the "Mac iOS" - at some point, future versions of the System software will no longer permit the relocation of the home folder AT ALL. No moving it to external drives, period.
I predict that -- as Apple moves to reshape the "Mac OS" into the "Mac iOS" - at some point, future versions of the System software will no longer permit the relocation of the home folder AT ALL. No moving it to external drives, period.
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I considered moving my home folder to an external drive before purchasing the Mac but with the potential issues that could arise I decided against it. Still went with the bare minimum, for me, of 512GB.
This can be made to work as macOS now allows the user to set an external drive as the destination for large applications from the App Store. I cannot say if this will also work without any issues for third-party apps as I haven't installed any non-App Store applications to my external 2TB OWC TB3 drive.
As for photos, music, and videos those live on one and/or two places. The OWC drive for anything I need in a potential offline scenario and my home server for everything else. I just created aliases to the OWC drive and server directories within my home folder. It is an extra two clicks or CMD+down. You can also change the default locations of a bunch of things like screenshots, downloads, and library locations. Just set your Music, Photos, and TV libraries to the external drive and ignore the home folder for that stuff.
edit: A correction with library locations. Photos will complain if the library location is not in the boot location.
This can be made to work as macOS now allows the user to set an external drive as the destination for large applications from the App Store. I cannot say if this will also work without any issues for third-party apps as I haven't installed any non-App Store applications to my external 2TB OWC TB3 drive.
As for photos, music, and videos those live on one and/or two places. The OWC drive for anything I need in a potential offline scenario and my home server for everything else. I just created aliases to the OWC drive and server directories within my home folder. It is an extra two clicks or CMD+down. You can also change the default locations of a bunch of things like screenshots, downloads, and library locations. Just set your Music, Photos, and TV libraries to the external drive and ignore the home folder for that stuff.
edit: A correction with library locations. Photos will complain if the library location is not in the boot location.
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I am not too worried about that as that will be the day I get off this bus (if not sooner for similar reasons). When I signed up for Mac circa Mac OS X 10.1, it was because it was UNIX + Mac. Mac alone doesn't work for me. It won't be UNIX for me if -- among other things -- they lock the system down such that its not functional/usable if I move the home folder.
Every time I see something I like (e.g. Apple M4), I read something like this to throttle my enthusiasm:
How macOS has become more private
Frameworks provide much of the macOS API. Over the last 5 years, the percentage of Private Frameworks has risen from 76% to 84%. Why is macOS becoming more private?
eclecticlight.co
Individually these things aren't dealbreakers. It's just this pot seems to be getting warmer and warmer...
Has anyone else done this and either found it works 100% or experienced any problems (especially with Spotlight)?
I'm seeing numerous YouTubers, and especially this fellow, pushing this hard. I'm seeing it touted on forums like right here. But I see no acknowledgment or discussion of the major limitations I and others have experienced and commented on. I remain interested if the problems are rare (I'm unlucky) or the YT'ers are conveniently ignoring problems to make happy tech videos.
I'm seeing numerous YouTubers, and especially this fellow, pushing this hard. I'm seeing it touted on forums like right here. But I see no acknowledgment or discussion of the major limitations I and others have experienced and commented on. I remain interested if the problems are rare (I'm unlucky) or the YT'ers are conveniently ignoring problems to make happy tech videos.
How much is "oversight", vs. out-right malice though?
In the case of keychain, if it is stored under the user profile, then it needs to be accessible to the OS before it is needed. It can't be on an inaccessible drive that hasn't been unlocked yet. Unless the OS is changed to mount and unlock external encrypted disks before it is needed, then you end up that you just made half the system inaccessible.
Is this bad design, or did Apple really think that migrating half the user space to an external disk isn't really done and so didn't add a mechanism to support this?
macOS may have roots in UNIX, but does that mean Apple intended Mac to always be 100% conformant with UNIX?
If the Home folder can't be moved, there is nothing stopping you from aliasing Documents, Downloads, to an external disk, surely? The stuff the operating system is looking for is not in those folders, so just create links to them on an external drive and everyone is happy?
As for Spotlight not working, or Apple Intelligence only working on the internal drive, if you create hard links, surely it will follow these as if the folders were on the internal drive??? Did Apple really go so far as to make these check for hard links out to other disks and refuse to work, or are people not really thinking too hard about this "issue"?
In the case of keychain, if it is stored under the user profile, then it needs to be accessible to the OS before it is needed. It can't be on an inaccessible drive that hasn't been unlocked yet. Unless the OS is changed to mount and unlock external encrypted disks before it is needed, then you end up that you just made half the system inaccessible.
Is this bad design, or did Apple really think that migrating half the user space to an external disk isn't really done and so didn't add a mechanism to support this?
macOS may have roots in UNIX, but does that mean Apple intended Mac to always be 100% conformant with UNIX?
If the Home folder can't be moved, there is nothing stopping you from aliasing Documents, Downloads, to an external disk, surely? The stuff the operating system is looking for is not in those folders, so just create links to them on an external drive and everyone is happy?
As for Spotlight not working, or Apple Intelligence only working on the internal drive, if you create hard links, surely it will follow these as if the folders were on the internal drive??? Did Apple really go so far as to make these check for hard links out to other disks and refuse to work, or are people not really thinking too hard about this "issue"?
Hey,
I had a similar situation and resolved it. My setup is Samsung T7 ext drive with APFS (Encrypted) filesystem on Sequoia 15.2
Grant Write permission to the User whose home folder is on the external drive.
Because I was using my Admin account to play with the user I am going to move to ext drive, and the initial permissions on the folder I created under the Admin user allows only Read access to everyone else.
iCloud doesn’t sync files referenced by alias or symlinks. The alias or symlink will be in iCloud. But the file or folder it references won’t be available online or on other devices.
I've had my home directory on a separate partition from the OS since circa MacOS X 10.1-3 and on an external drive since circa 2010. I've done this even on older Macs where I could have swapped out the Apple-provided drive with a larger, 3rd-party drive -- I generlaly believe it's good practice to seperate the OS from user files (as well as 3rd-party/unbundled applications).
I recall in early days this configuration was less supported but still worked well enough with a symbolic link (e.g. /Users/myUser -> /Volumes/External/myUser). For some time now it's also been supported to use Advanced Options in User to set home to a custom folder.
The biggest issue I've found with having one's home folder on an external drive is when the drive gets accidently disconnected (e.g. something/someone bumps the USB/Thunderbolt cable/connector). As such I don't normally use this with laptops (but have used it as a fallback as I can move my entire environment to another Mac < 5 minutes) though I still keep my home folder on a separate partition (which is then preserved even if I want to blow away the OS or switch back and forth between OS).
If the external drive holding a home folder does get disconnected while logged in, safest to close everything (note your home folder may not be accessible), logout, run First Aid on the disk, make sure everything is okay, and then log back in. This process is not ideal for your typical/90% of computer users.
If it is removed/disconnected and then a login is attempted, I recall macOS just recreates a new user in /Users (note, I haven't tested this in a while with recent OS and/or with home folder explicitly set to a non-Users location). Plugging the drive back in and/or logging out and logging back in won't fix this so again not great for a typical/90% of computer users.
As far as supported, there seems to be lots of hooks in macOS to support non-local home folders in an enterprise environments as this is not uncommon in such environments. As such I assume it is supported with the priviso that supported environments typically include dedicated IT people to troubleshoot if something goes askew.
Also, the more one goes outside common configurations -- supported or not -- the more trouble one is likely to encounter. I have seen 3rd party apps that hardwire folder names to start with /Users -- presumably incorrect as far as proper use of the macOS API and bad practice in UNIX for 40 years but that doesn't always stop people.
With those caveats in mind, I haven't had any issues / regrets with this configuration. Spotlight works the same (though I haven't found it reliable for many generations of macOS but believe that relates to something unrelated). Guessing it does't work with iCloud Drive but I have no interest in that. Not sure about TM as I have a non-Apple-dependent scheme for backups. I've heard Apple Intelligence is not supported in this configuration but honestly I would pay at most $4.99 to get the novelty of Genmojis so wouldn't break the configuration I otherwise prefer for it.
P.S.I always maintain an administrator account seperate from my user account and I always keep that account local.
What are the reasons for doing this? Could you please let us know the pros and cons of this approach?
It's partially habit from general best practice on UNIX and managed computing environments in general to keep regular user accounts separate from administator accounts and only use the latter when specifically trying to modify the system. This separation is generally accepted to improve security and system reliability (e.g. by decreasing failures due to system administrator mistakes).
By mostly working from what macOS calls a 'Standard' account, malware is blocked from modifying system files and reading some admin-only accessible files. The likelihood of malware infecting the whole system is reduced. Additionally, by being disciplined about never using Safari/etc from the administrator account, I have an extra level of sandboxing from the Internet. Similarly never installing or modifying the system from my regular account means I won't accidently enter my password into a malware-generated popup.
Then knowing that I can't accidently modify the system from my regular account, I can test any glitches out in a throwaway test account knowing that the glitch is with the system rather than my regular account if the glitch happens there and vice-versa.
The main drawback is greater effort to maintain. For the above to be effective, I have to switch back and forth between my regular user account and the administrator account. Not hard with fast user switching but only using Safari, etc in my regular account and only installing new/updated software from an admin account means a couple of extra steps to download new/updated software to a shared location and then switchover to install, etc.
Also, not all preferences can be changed as a 'Standard' user and it can be a little confusing for some to have to switch to the admin account to change some settings but not others. macOS hasn't been great about making it clear which settings are user versus system and I don't agree with all their choices about which are which either.
Also also, macOS hasn't been perfect about releasing resources when logging out of an account so switching to the admin account and back -- even if completely logging out of admin when done -- consumes some extra RAM that won't be released until reboot. Not a terrible amount but annoying. I haven't checked if this is fixed in Sonoma/Sequoia.
Finally, as macOS has introduced SIP, SSV, de-privileged admin accounts, etc, this seperation has become less significant. Key system files can't be modified by the user intentionally not to mention accidently without disabling SIP and breaking the SSV. Similarly for malware. In some sense today's 'Admin' is like earlier 'Standard' and one has to do an extra authentication or reboot into Recovery to do things that used to be possible straight from 'Admin'.
However, I still prefer the separate accounts model for the extra sandboxing and protecting files not protected by SSV (e.g. Firefox). Also if I break my regular account it's nice to have a spare account from which I can fix everything...
I have been doing this on my Windows PC. Yes it is a bit inconvenience as the system often asks for the password of the admin account to install or update something.
Sigh, I was all excited for this until I read that iCloud Drive doesn’t work from an external drive Home Folder scenario. MacOS optimizes my small Mac drive so that most iCloud files remain in the cloud only. This means that Time Machine won’t back up those files unless I specifically download them, unless I’m missing something.
It seems that if we don't do the Apple's way, there are always some sort of issues.
Why would you care about Time Machine backing up iCloud files? They are already in iCloud.
I mean sure there is a possibility that something catastrophic happens at Apple data centers but it is really unlikely. You can always copy the iCloud files you care about to an external drive and add that location to your Time Machine.
iCloud Drive is just a sync service, not a backup service; so files can get deleted, corrupted, changed without me being aware. True, you can, and I do, have iCloud files backed up to OneDrive and physical drives. However, I work in a field where I generate dozens of files per day (sometimes 100s during the pandemic), so keeping track of files to back up is taxing for me. Back then I had an M1 Max MacBook Pro with a 2TB drive and the whole of iCloud drive downloaded to the machine, allowing automated backups. I will be reverting to a machine with a large built-in drive soon. Sigh.
I find it a little annoying that iCloud keeps being called a sync service. I understand why it is but iCloud operates completely differently on iOS compared to macOS. On iOS it is cloud storage and on macOS it is this strange hybrid.
I have iCloud files going back to 2017 that are still readily available for me to download and access. What services or applications have permissions to go into your iCloud and start purging things without your knowledge? Besides I guess apps that create their own directories and manage what is inside those.
By any chance do you have a desktop Mac? Even an older one? You could set up Content Caching.
If the home folder is set to be in the external drive, what could happen if the cable connection is broken or wake from sleep? Tried to order a 1TB internal SSD version but it will take more than two weeks to arrive. Not sure if I should just order and wait or go for 512 internal + home folder on TB4/TB5 external.
I thought I covered this in another post in either this thread or a similar one. One of the downsides to having a home folder on an external disk is the interruption and possible unsaved work if there is a disconnect due to cable interruption (connector gets knocked/jiggled/etc). When it happens you get the standard macOS "Disk not properly ejected, etc" warning/message.
Unlike a thumb drive that may not have even been actively in use when improperly ejected, it's your home folder under which a lot of applications had open files. When that happens my recommendation is to close all applications -- ideally saving any unsaved work if possible in an alternate location/alternate disk, logout, run First Aid on the external disk, and then log back in to resume work. Yes annoying and not ideal for non-technical users.
Fortunately, this does not happen to me often. Months if not years between it happening on my setup. Part of that is likely due to me not physically interacting with my Mini often and the most likely time it does happen is when I am unplugging and plugging USB-C devices. As all the USB-C receptacles on older Mac Mini are next to each other on the back, it is easy to knock an adjacent cable (which could be the one leading to my external SSD).
I have not had any issues with sleep. I let my Mini go to sleep during the day when not in use and habitually put it to sleep at night. I've never lost connection to the SSD holding my home folder related to sleep.
OK. I shall keep the home folder in the internal drive than. In that case, is 512GB internal sufficient if I also manually move some photos and videos to an external drive?
Two issues I am facing:
1. I have to wait until the first week of February to get a customized model with 1TB internal SSD.
2. For some customized models, Apple no longer allows pick up in local store for unknown reason. It has to be delivered. Heard some bad experience such as Mac got stolen by drivers, etc.
I don't know enough about what you do and what it requires to answer that -- you might look for others using similar software to do similar work. It also depends if you plan to use iCloud Drive (reduces local need), iCloud backups of iPhones/iPads or local backups (which can be a lot depend on what you keep on your devices), sync Messages (can be a lot), stream music or maintain your own music library, etc.
For estimation purposes I would break into three buckets:
-macOS and related
-3rd-party Applications
-Home folder
On the first, assume 30 - 50 GB now plus a few years of growth.
You'll know your 3rd-party applications best. If office and few random things perhaps 10-20 GB. Otherwise check the hard drive space required by each. Games can be giant.
As for your data, as above it depends but the first 10 GB will go quick. Plus if you are manually moving files to an external disk, you'll need enough room to keep files on the internal disk until you move them.
Then add 50% for some margin and so that normally you're at 70% or less total disk space usage.
So if 75GB for macOS/etc, 100GB for 3rd-party applications, and 125GB for various personal and working files -> 300 GB normally. Add 50% -> 450GB. In which case 512GB should be fine.
On the other hand, a family member has ~ 100GB alone for a game called Sims and related mods. Then add 50 GB for messages, 20 GB for e-mail, ...
Afraid others better to advise on that. Last time I ordered a Mac, they shipped direct from China to my home tracked all the way through a major carrier. Unclear if/when they still do that. I don't trust companies that farm out the last mile to gig workers.