1

hi all,

i know how to copy user accounts to a new user account on the same mac

mkdir /Users/new_user
ditto /Users/old_user /Users/new_user
chown -R new_user /Users/new_user

but what about if i want to copy the user profile over to a new mac

is the best way once i run the “ditto” command to run “cp -rf” it over to the smb share so i can copy it back to the new mac?

thanks,
rob

5 Spice ups
2

Any reason you’re not using the built-in migration assistant to do this?

So long as both devices are on the same network, you can use transfer from a mac on the new one and transfer to another mac on the old one.

4 Spice ups
3

il try this and let you know rod, thanks

2 Spice ups
4

It is known to use the Migration Assistant for that case as @Rod-IT noted.

2 Spice ups
5

Also - because cifs/smb shares are less than reliable at *nix permissions, you’d do better to create a .tar or .tgz file there, you can even un-tar it with the owner and permissions you want.

I didn’t see anything about smb/cifs in the post, just the title.

I don’t get much chance to look at Mac equipment, but I would imagine they have the /etc/skel folder that the rest of *nix does - if you want a lot of users to have files in common, that’s the place to do it, everything there get’s copied to the new user profile on creation, then chmodded and chowned with the new user’s credentials.

6

How did you get on?

7

tbh i havnt tried, i will try the ditto command, tar it up and then copy it over to the new mac, will let you know

8

You’re not going to use the wizard designed to do it for you?

9

I know little about macOS (since it is more BSD/UNIX than it is Linux) but for Linux machines i use rsync. It can even copy files from one machine to the other over SSH (no need for intermediate storage). With -a parameter you can even preserve all metadata of the files.