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Copying files to new HDD without messing up ownership?

macstatic

macstatic

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Oct 21, 2005
2,057
175
Norway
I'm getting a new, bigger hard drive and need to transfer all user files from the old drive. In the process I want to clean out files I consider trash, so doing this manually in the Finder would probably be beneficial.
The big question is how to do this without messing with file-ownerships?

OK, so let's say my users on the old drive are called "Tom" and "Jerry".
On the new drive I create two new users called "Tom_NEW" and "Jerry_NEW", so I drag the contents of the usual folders (Documents, Music, Pictures etc.) over to their equivalents on the new drive. But won't this cause a mess when I'm done as for instance the "Tom_NEW" files on the new drive will still belong to "Tom"?
Would it work better if I drag the entire main folders (Documents. Music, Pictures etc.) over to the new drive's "Public" folder, then reorganize them from there (after logging into that user's account)?

When done with the file copying I plan to remove the old drive and rename the users to their original names (i.e. "Tom" and "Jerry") and hope not to run into problems again.
 
Yes, that would work, but I want to manually copy over files so I can determine what can be trashed and what I need.
I should also mention that the old HDD is used with MacOS 10.9.5 El Capitan so I probably shouldn't just copy over everything from the users' Library folder.
 
I've never used it before. Does it copy absolutely everything, or do I need to recheck?
And do I need to have the exact same MacOS user names (user accounts) on the new drive for it to work?
 
Based on my experience I'd say:

-CCC is absolutely fail proof if you're e.g. replacing a drive (and off course as a Backup).
It does what it says: 100% clone.

-Migration assistant works too, but it can be messy with user accounts, compatibility on newer OS etc.
What works is not create an account with the same name ,not change the name of the user account , but just make a new account called e.g. admin on the new disc /OS , and let the MA import the original accounts. Afterwards if desired you can delete the admin account.

-If you'd like to transfer only the Home Folder from one OS to a different OS version, the safest way is to do a clean install of the desired OS on the new drive ,create user accounts with the desired names and copy your old data manually into the new folders . This way there won't be any issues with permissions etc.
Caveat is to setup all your preferences manually again.
 
Why not clean out the files on the old drive first and then clone your old drive to the new drive.
 
Lots of good suggestions.
My setup is a bit complicated..For instance, because I have my user accounts relocated to a separate HDD from MacOS (I keep MacOS and my apps on an SSD), Migration assistant refuses to transfer my accounts.

Secondly, I decided to do a clean install of 10.13 on an SSD (i.e. formatting it, then installing 10.13 and all my users -the latter which I then relocated to the separate HDD).
So I've more or less managed to manually copy (using the Finder) all my user's folders from the old HDD over to the new HDD by copying them over to the applicable user account's "Public"-"Drop box" folder. I believe this worked out without permission issues for the most part, but the whole thing is pretty confusing (not all apps' data is found in obvious places within the user's sub-folders of their "Library" folder). So I had to install the free permission-changing utility "Batchmod".
If I'm not mistaken the correct ownership of an entire user's folder (and everything within in it is as following if you do a Finder "Show info" on it):

Owner's user-name: read & write
Staff: read only
everyone: read only

The exception to the above only being the ~/Public/Drop Box/ folder which is set up like this:


Owner's user-name: read & write
Staff: write only (Drop Box)
everyone: write only (Drop Box)


And I've worked out the correct locations of files/folders to be copied so that stuff like the Calendar, Contacts, Safari etc. work from the new drive.
I didn't have any success in transferring the "Keychain" data, so in the end I gave it up as there wasn't much to re-enter anyway.

One thing I would like to copy over to the new HDD but can't is the contents of "iBooks".
I did copy the entire folder from the old HDD to the new HDD in the exact same location, and I can see my books there (with a generic cover instead of the proper book covers), but I keep getting this message
"The application iBooks does not have permission to open xxxxxxxxxxxx", and that's even after having run Batchmod to ensure the permissions are right for the entire "Library" folder.
The iBooks file location is here:
~/Library/Containers/com.apple.BKAgentService/Data/Documents/iBooks/Books

Have I missed some other file dependancies perhaps?
 
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macstatic said:
I have my user accounts relocated to a separate HDD from MacOS (I keep MacOS and my apps on an SSD), Migration assistant refuses to transfer my accounts.
Click to expand...

From my experience with the exact same setup I recommend the following steps:
I've done it several times without any risk of loosing data , permissions issues and 3rd party apps as follows:

1-clean install
2-create user account(s) with desired name the same name
3-login to the account you'd like to add "old" data
4-copy the content of the folders of the old account, not the folder itself to the new folders
5-after setting up the personal preferences etc. copy the home folder to another disc by dragging it to the new place ,not by command+C etc.
6-set the new path in advanced options.
7-restart ,check if the new path works and delete the original Home folder.

This way you won't have to use any apps or manipulate permissions etc. and is 100% fail proof .
The only condition is that the OS disc has enough space (temporarily) for all the user data.
Hope to be of some help...

EDIT: In case the OS disc hasn't enough space, you could also skip step 4, and after step 7, do step 3 and 4
 
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I hadn't thought of doing it that way.
So, if I've understood you correctly..... after having created the new user-account (and logged into it) I now have a main folder for the user-account (let's call it "Jerry") which has a house-icon (showing that it's my home folder):

~/Jerry/

And if I double-click that folder I will see these sub-folders:

Desktop/
Documents/
Downloads/
Library/
Movies/
Music/
Pictures/
Public/

Correct so far, right?
In step 4, are you saying that I copy the entire contents of each of these folders over to the same named folder?
For instance, let's take the "Library" folder: I open (double-click) the "Library" folder on the new HDD, and likewise I open the "Library" folder on the old HDD.
Then I copy all its sub-folders (i.e. Application support, Caches, Audio, Containers, Preferences, Services etc.) from the old HDD to the new HDD, saying yes to replace all identically named folders already there. Is this what you mean?

So far I've done it almost like that, except I've only replaced the folders on the new HDD with what I know has content I want to transfer (for instance the folder found at ~/Jerry/Library/Application Support/AddressBook/ because I want to transfer all my contacts in the address-book from my old HDD), and left the rest alone.
I wanted to make sure I didn't mess anything up in case of mismatch with the new OS version or other issues by replacing the newly created folders with those from the old HDD).

Can I safely just replace everything inside all those main user folders (including the Library folder)?

Another thing: is it essential that I create the a new user on the new HDD with the exact same username as with the old HDD (i.e. "Jerry" instead of suddenly calling myself "JerryBerry" on that new HDD)? I don't know if permissions are based on some sort of ID, or if the OS just recognizes "Jerry" from the old HDD is spelt the same as "Jerry" on the new HDD, so it assumes they belong to the same person, hence I won't get any permission problems when I drag them over (copying the sub-folders) as opposed to if I call the new account "JerryBerry" then MacOS might assume this is a new person, refusing to copy those folders over, or at least keeping the ownership to "Jerry".
 
I'll try to answer all your questions ,sorry for the telegram style:)
macstatic said:
I now have a main folder for the user-account (let's call it "Jerry") which has a house-icon (showing that it's my home folder):
Click to expand...
yes correct.
So after copying your new Home folder to the other disc, after set the new path and restart, you can tell by the Home icon, if the transition was successful.

macstatic said:
And if I double-click that folder I will see these sub-folders:

Desktop/
Documents/
Downloads/
Library/
Movies/
Music/
Pictures/
Public/
Click to expand...

Library is hidden normally, unless you pressed command+shift+.
I would only copy the content of the 7 other sub-folders, not Library.

macstatic said:
Can I safely just replace everything inside all those main user folders (including the Library folder)?
Click to expand...

Except for the Library folder: yes.
I assume you may run into issues if you manipulate the Library folder.
You could try to copy only the adressbook and paste it in the correct (new) folder.
Os may ask for your password I guess.

macstatic said:
is it essential that I create the a new user on the new HDD with the exact same username as with the old HDD
Click to expand...

Based on my experiences, I would recommend it because of e.g. License Keys etc.

EDIT: I think it's saver to leave the hidden files hidden (by pressing command +shift +. again) unless you want to do advanced things . By hiding them, its much easier to avoid risks of issues.
 
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Oh, I see.
But therein lies the problem: I need to transfer a lot of stuff which is stored inside the user's Library folder, such as data for these apps:

Address Book
Calendar
Firefox
Safari
... well basically data and settings for just about all the apps I use.

I usually reinstall the apps every time I do a clean install of MacOS/OSX, but it's essential that I get to transfer all my personal data/settings for those apps too.

So given that I can't use Migration assistant (because my user's folders are on a separate drive which isn't the OS/boot drive), and can't use Carbon copy cloner/SuperDuper (or similar cloning app) because I'm transferring user data belonging to an older OS version (10.11) and don't want version mismatch problems between the two, and finally .......to complicate it even more I've now created a new user account on the new HDD with files transferred over from the HDD, but seeing that I might possibly have messed some parts of it up, I pretty much have to manually work this out unless someone has a better idea.

The main obstacle is finding out where some of the apps' user-data and prefs are located. Apparently not all apps have this located in ~/Library/Application Support/ but in rather strange and hard to find places (such as the iBooks app).
 
I understand: this is complicated.

To set the preferences for a lot of apps is time consuming...

Another thing is your address book and calendar.
By coincidence you don't use a iPhone which is synchronized with your MBP and MP?
If that's the case, you could recover your adressbook and calendar very easily....
Or if your MBP contains the same valuable data, you could transfer it to the MP...
 
Yes! You're absolutely right about the address book and calendar :)
I actually do have an iPad which has had its addresses and calendar synced recently, so I just synced it back to the new user account using iTunes. Worked perfectly!
 
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Yes!!!
Good for you !
So now you got a clean OS running smoothly with all your data ?
 
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Thanks!
Yes, I now have a "clean" new user profile with some of my data transferred, but there's plenty left to do. Your suggestion with Address Book and Calendar via an iOS device helped prevent unnecessary file mangling. Most apps' data is just a matter of copying its folder (usually found within ~/Library/Application Support/) and its preference file(s) found within ~/Library/Preferences/, but Apple likes to do things their own way. So I need to investigate further into how to transfer data belonging to iBooks for instance. I don't want to overwrite files/folders on the new drive unnecessarily because of ignorance.
 
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