# Moving users folder to another drive or partition



## HyperLiteG4 (Jul 1, 2002)

I know I saw the question post a while back about moving the Users folder to another partition or drive. I always wanted to do that as well and then I found out how to do it easily....

this is from MacWorld Magazine:




> Open Terminal and type the following commands:
> 
> sudo ditto -rsrc "/Users/username" "/Volumes/volumename/Users/username"
> 
> ...



If that last line returns errors in Terminal or doesn't work, go to your NetInfo Manager in the Utilities folder. Click the lock to allow changes, look in the /users/username folder and highlight your username. Down below in the properties list there is a property that is called home, highlight that one and change the value from /Users/username to /Volumes/volumename/Users/username



> The first command (sudo ditto) copies your complete user folder, including all invisible files, to a new user folder on the volume volumename; the -rsrc option ensures that all resource forks are copied. The second command (sudo niutil) basically reassigns your home directory from the original location to the new location. (In fact, this Terminal command does exactly the same thing as using the NetInfo Manager utility to change the location of the property home for your user profile.) At this point you should log out and then log back in to make sure your user folder was copied properly to the new volume and your home folder was properly reassigned. If you're successful, open Terminal again and type the following commands:
> 
> sudo rm -dr "/Users/username/"
> 
> ...



I hope this works for you all, it works great for me. The article can be found at: http://www.macworld.com/2002/06/secrets/osxsecrets.html and it was in the June edition of MacWorld Magazine


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## cabbage (Jul 2, 2002)

which was ripped off from Bombich
http://www.bombich.com/mactips/homedir.html

Mac FAQs & Tips by Mike and Sarah Bombich
http://www.bombich.com/mactips/index.html
Copyright 2002Mike Bombich
Pagemaster | Site last modified 03/17/2002


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## cabbage (Jul 2, 2002)

ohh yah i have done it successfully
it did create a blank folder on the root of the osx drive that was an alias or symbolic link to the new users path


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## Radmacdaddy (Jun 9, 2010)

Thank HyperLite... I was trying to move to another volume but for got "/volumes/" in the path... was banging my head against the screen!  Thank you.


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## bengels (Sep 3, 2011)

Hi HyperLite,

Sorry to resurect this post but I am wanting to do something similar (albeit more granular) on Lion, and hope I can ask you a question or 2.

Note: I have an SSD and an HDD in my machine and I want to have all OS and App related stuff on the SSD and all the other stuff on the HDD (for obvious reasons  )

1) Would this still be the way to do things on OSX Lion?
2) Can I pick and chose which /Users/username/"Folder" I want to move and,
3) any advice about what I shld and shldn't be moving to achieve what I want

THANKS!!!


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## Satcomer (Sep 3, 2011)

Well moving your iTunes Library stuff to an external is easy.  Now with your pictures and other things learn how to use an alias for the user's Pictures folders. This also could be used for Audio creation files and video creation files. With a little knowledge you can move all this to a SPEEDY (esata turnkey or ESata PCI card) external.


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## nrsz (Jan 5, 2012)

bengels said:


> Hi HyperLite,
> 
> Sorry to resurect this post but I am wanting to do something similar (albeit more granular) on Lion, and hope I can ask you a question or 2.
> 
> ...



Hi, 

I'm facing the same issue - did you try or find another solution?

Thanks!


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## nrsz (Jan 5, 2012)

unfortunatly you can't delete the folder from the users folder..


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## BjarneDM (Jan 5, 2012)

bengels said:


> Would this still be the way to do things on OSX Lion?
> Can I pick and chose which /Users/username/"Folder" I want to move and,
> any advice about what I should and shouldn't be moving to achieve what I want




No - since 10.5 _niutil_ has been removed from the system and replaced with _dscl_; and _ditto_ preservers all of the hfs+ special functionality by default.
Yes

You can move one or more users -or- all of them. Depending on which of these situations you want to implement, the details will vary.

Moving some users individually to another place using *Terminal* is done like this:

```
sudo /Users/username /Volumes/volumename/Users/username
sudo chown -R username:staff /Volumes/volumename/Users/username
sudo dscl . -create /Users/username NFSHomeDirectory /Volumes/volumename/Users/username
sudo rm -rf  /Users/username
```

Moving all users to another place using Terminal is done like this:

```
sudo ditto /Users /Volumes/volumename/Users
sudo rm -rf /Users
sudo ln /Volumes/volumename/Users /Users
cd /Volumes/volumename/Users
for user in *
do
    sudo chown -R ${user}:staff ${user}
done
```
There are ways of doing one or more of these steps in the GUI.


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## doctorbighands (Jan 14, 2012)

BjarneDM,

Will this also work for moving the Applications folder?

My situation: I have a 60GB SSD boot drive, and a 120GB "everything else" HDD. I need to install my copy of Logic, but there isn't enough room on the SSD, so it needs to be installed on the HDD. If I can move the Applications folder to the HDD, then OSX shouldn't have an issue installing Logic there...right?

I'd go ahead and just try it, but I don't want to mess anything up. Thank you for your help!


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