How do I backup my system/application settings and applications only?

[SAbsar]

Hi.

I need to backup my system settings, application settings (like rules and signatures for Mail.app and stuff), and installed applications. That's it. That's all I want to backup, so that if I need to reinstall Mac OS X, i can restore the backup over. I don't want to backup my entire HD just to be able to do this.

Can you help?

 

[ElDiabloConCaca]

Hmmm... different applications store their preferences and settings in different places -- I would assume if you grabbed your entire home library that this would get pretty much all the settings you need.

Most preferences are in ~/Library/Preferences
Most application settings are in ~/Library/Application Support or /Library/Application Support
Mail is located in ~/Library/Mail
Mail's preferences are in ~/Library/Preferences

Perhaps just the entire ~/Library folder, and possibly poke through /Library and see if there's anything of interest there...