How to revive macOS settings and startup gadgets on a brand new Mac

Apple has improved macOS’s improve course of tremendously over time. With current releases, it’s uncommon one thing goes pear-shaped and prevents an improve from finishing. However, you’ll be able to typically wind up in an in-between state, as one reader discovered. Your accounts migrated with all their knowledge, however on every restart, macOS loses adjustments to startup gadgets, System Preferences settings, and even app registrations. The startup quantity passes all assessments with flying colours: secure mode, First Aid in Disk Utility, reinstalling the working system from macOS Recovery, and the like.

At this stage, you will have solely two choices:

• Use Migration Assistant to basically “reinstall” your foremost person or any affected macOS customers.
• Erase the drive and carry out a recent migration omitting community and different settings.
• Erase, reinstall macOS, create a brand new person, migrate apps, and manually copy over your person information.

In all instances, you don’t change any of your information or make any deletions. The downside seems to be in how macOS tracks what it ought to be consulting at startup.

Reinstall your person through Migration Assistant

You sometimes use Migration Assistant to maneuver over a earlier startup quantity to a brand new Mac or the same switch. However, Migration Assistant helps you to set up particular customers from a backup quantity. Warning: The following steps log you out of your account to carry out the migration.

1. Create a recent Time Machine backup if one wasn’t created for the reason that final time you made any adjustments to the account’s information. (You may use a cloning app, like Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper!)
2. Launch Applications > Utilities > Migration Assistant.
3. Click Continue and authenticate. This logs you out of your present account into Migration Assistant mode.
4. Select your Time Machine drive or different backup and click on Continue.
5. Choose the particular backup if there are multiples, and click on Continue.
6. From the “Select the information to transfer” window, test the account or accounts with which you’re having issues and click on Continue. (Note: You want a minimum of as a lot free house in your startup quantity as proven subsequent to every account.)
7. You’re prompted to rename the accounts, as they’d in any other case overlap with current accounts on this Mac.
8. Follow prompts to finish the restoration.
9. When completed, log in to the “new” model of your defective account.

Try making adjustments that beforehand failed. If they work now, you’ll be able to delete the older account:

1. In System Preferences > Users & Groups, click on the lock icon and authenticate your self.
2. Select the older person account and click on the minus signal on the backside of the accounts checklist.
3. Choose “Delete the home folder” and click on Delete User. Confirm deletion. (Since you will have a backup of this account and have a replica in your drive, you need to have sufficient backups. You may go for “Save the home folder in a disk image,” however want that a lot cupboard space to make that replicate.)

If the above didn’t get you again to your earlier working state, strive the subsequent two options.

Perform a full reinstall and restore

You can take extra drastic measures at this level if the above didn’t work:

1. After making certain you will have two distinct copies of your information backed up and safe, restart your Mac into macOS Recovery.
2. Select Disk Utility and click on Continue.
3. Select your startup drive and erase it, then partition it, as defined on this article.
4. Quit Disk Utility, choose Reinstall macOS, click on Continue, and observe the prompts.
5. Restart into macOS and select your backed-up quantity to make use of with Migration Assistant. Follow the prompts, however don’t test System & Network–regardless of the innocent-sounding title, unchecking it has been the answer to some knotty migrations I’ve had prior to now.

When full, does your account now protect adjustments? If so, cease right here and make a recent backup.

If not, there’s yet another factor to strive.

Migrate to a brand new account manually

Because you reinstalled macOS within the earlier step and migrated all of your purposes from the backup, you’ll be able to keep away from each of these operations.

Instead, you’re going to create a recent account and transfer your information there. Go to System Preferences > Users & Groups and create a brand new account: click on the + signal, title the account, and provides it administrative privileges.

Because Apple doesn’t allow you to sometimes copy straight from account to account with out messing round with permissions, you should utilize the Users > Shared folder as an intermediate step.

First, whereas logged in to your damaged person account, copy all the pieces it’s essential to the Shared folder. Most of your private information probably stay in Documents and Photos: maintain down the Option key and drag these into the Shared folder. Do the identical for different information. (You can maintain down Command as a substitute of Option to maneuver these folders to Shared should you lack sufficient storage and may depend on a backup of your foremost person account if it’s essential to resort to it.)

Next, log off of this defective account and into the brand new one you created:

• Run by means of setup steps, resembling logging into iCloud and different Apple ID accounts.
• Command-drag information from the Shared folder into the brand new account’s location.
• Launch the apps it’s essential to use and reconnect libraries and re-enter registrations.

It could also be tough or time-consuming to arrange some app, significantly people who have elaborate permissions. Use the app developer’s Web website to seek out if the corporate provides directions on discovering the settings information—typically deep in ~/Library/ in numerous subfolders like Application Support and Preferences. Also flip to a search engine for assist from others who’ve gone by means of the identical restoration.

This Mac 911 article is in response to a query submitted by Macworld reader Michael.

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