[oahu_michael]

I am trying to figure out if there is a way to copy all my custom configured user preferences from my current user account to a newly created account? For instance all of my dock/desktop/finder settings, user preferences specific to my account, and of course all my home folder data. Is it as simple as deleting all files/folders within the new users home and then copying all files/folders from the current account? What about hidden files and should this just be done via terminal?

And/or is there a way to configure the default profile settings, such that any new users would have these various user specific settings configured immediately and not require any copying?

As a reference, when doing this on Windows machines I simply edited the registry key named "DefaultUserProfile" located at:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList]

From:

"DefaultUserProfile"="Default User"

To:

"DefaultUserProfile"="Administrator" (or any user profile name I wanted to copy located within CDocuments and Settings\

[MacsWork]

Don't copy the forders, Documents, Desktop etc. Just copy the contents.

Ideally you'd do this in target disk mode connected to another mac.

[oahu_michael]

Thanks, that would work for just transferring documents/pics etc, but I guess what I'm getting at is how to copy all user preferences? After further research I'm starting to think maybe I can just copy all the .plist files inside of /users/username/library/preferences - I'm about to test this right now on a test account...

[Smackintosh]

you have to enable the root account. once you do that you can log in as root and copy everything from one user account to another. Once that is done change the permissions on the files/folders you just copied (open terminal and type chown -R <new_name> /Users/<new_name>

[oahu_michael]

Ok success I believe...

-Enabled root account, logged in as root
-Enabled viewing of hidden files (not sure if this is necessary or not)
-Copied all folders within the original user account's home folder to the new user's home folder, excluding the .hidden files as finder would not let them be copied
-Opened "Get Info" on new user's home folder, and clicked "Apply to enclosed items..." and ok/yes to prompt (to ensure all permissions were updated)
-Restarted, logged into new user account and all desktop/dock settings appear to be the same as the old user, and all files are accessible!

Perhaps there is a simple way to do this via terminal but I'm just glad this works as I didn't want to have to configure the settings over and over for each new user.

Now on to see if the same can be done for what I think are the "default user" profile settings found in /System/Library/User Template/English.lproj

[oahu_michael]

Thanks Smackintosh, I'm assuming running the chown -R <new_name> /Users/<new_name> command via terminal performs the same function as updating the permissions via "Apply to enclosed items..."?

Also do you know anything about changing the profile settings found in /System/Library/User Template/English.lproj? I would like to change some things to a custom default but definitely don't want to mess any of those system defaults up while I'm in there as root?