Possible to do clean install + copying user folder?

[tiktok]

After a few months of experimenting with OS X, I've decided to do a clean install of my system. However, I want to minimize the downtime and do as little work as possible.

Now, after the clean install, can I just restore my user folder from a copy? Or would restoring my user folder invalidate the whole purpose of a clean install?

In the end, I only want to keep a few .*rc files and my mailboxes. If I shouldn't restore my user folder, could someone point to where the mailboxes for Mail.app is stored?

[berny868]

copying the users folder is possible. but you should first create the users in the fresh installed OS X, and copy the stuff from the old users folder to the new users folder (not the whole folder).

[fryke]

if you backup /Users/username you can do a complete reinstall (plus apply all software updates). make sure that the username is still the same, then you can replace the whole folder and - voilà - all your settings are there again after a relogin.

works fine, as long as you're adding every user in the correct order (users have numbers) or have only one user.

however, you will have to reinstall some third party applications, too, because they might have put things outside of your user's folder. (Adobe springs to mind... but lots of utilities, too.)