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InsanelyMac Forum > Apple World > OS X > OS X Leopard (10.5)
kmikase
Hi,
I'm using Os X for fews weeks now and I still don't know how to move the "User" folder.
I have 3 partitions on my laptop (1 vista, 1 for datas and one for osx).
I would like my user folder to be on the datas partition because in this partition i already have my music, my videos. So i'd like to save space by moving this user folder to this partition.
Does anyone knows how to do it ?

thank you
shirka666
Hi,

I personally manage to move my user directory using command line: sudo cp -p -R /Users/xxx/ /Volumes/Data/Users/xxx
This will copy recursively all my user directory. Then in the System Preferences pane, Users Accounts, right click on your user account, then advanced options. You can select the new home directory.
Reboot, log in, remove the old directory if all is correct smile.gif
kitkat54
alternatively, you can do the following in a terminal window:

sudo -s
<enter password at prompt>
cp -Rp /Users /Volumes/Data/Users
mv /Users /Users.moved ; ln -s /Volumes/Data/Users /Users ; rm -rf /Users.moved

This will create a soft link from /Users to your new location. The advantage to this over the above is that you don't have to alter the user accounts in the preference panes.
kmikase
Thank you guys. Kitkat54 I would like to know if with your method, when for example i'm downloading something, will it automaticaly put it in the new user directory\download or in the original user directory\download ?
kitkat54
yes... the OS will automatically follow the link to the new location when you access your home directory.
kmikase
Kitkat54 i didn't suceed to make your method working. So i've done Shirka666's one. It has worked. But this stupid OS X didn't copy the mac documents folder into the windows documents folder on my data partition, it had totally replace the folder !! So i've lost all the folder documents :'(. I have copies off some files but still i've lost old documents. It was a bad day anyway smile.gif. So now i have a common data folder between windows and mac, that's the most important.
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