Don’t be surprised by the slowness – it will take considerably longer to boot the operating system of a USB drive than the PCIe SSD installed in modern Macs. You can now run the operating system as normal and can use this USB drive to boot up your Mac if your boot drive fails. Sep 22, 2008  You can use drag & drop in OS 9. Just drag your hard drive's icon on to the external hard drive's icon & the files will be copied. If the external hard drive is connected via USB, it won't boot. You need to connect via firewire. Question: Q: Backup Mac Os 9 More Less. Apple Footer.

Provided the user account isn't the only admin account you can just use the System Preferences option to delete the user account. It prompts to archive the account to a disk image or a folder.

Deleting the account does not preserve ownership and permissions, as this method does. When deleting/archiving an account you're removing the user and all associated information, so the system changes the permissions to be accessible by other (admin) users.

Why would you want to preserve ACL's & ownership? The OS will restore the correct ownership after the new user is created on the new system.
Don't ACL's use the UUID of the account & not the user ID? So when you make the new account the UUID's no longer match? Right click the account in System Prefs & select Advanced options…
Anyway, if it works for you, great.

Huh. The right-click-user-to-see-Advanced-Options bit should be a hint unto itself -- never knew about that! :)

Neat! Neither did I! Now I'm going to have to try right clicking in all such lists!

> and then will verify the home folder as having the correct ownership...
Does it actually check the ownership of *all* files in the folder, including sub-folders?

There's Time Machine and also the Migration Assistant. Most of the time, if there is storage available, I would want to back up the entire disk, probably as a disk image, using Super Duper, CCC, Disk Utility or ddrescue if things are really bad. Then you can install a new system, run Migration Assistant and select as many user accounts as you want to move from the backup to the new system.

Definitely true that Time Machine or other utilities will give you a more complete backup of the entire system. This process was designed as a quick and easy solution for moving user accounts between machines without migrating all data. It's easy to demonstrate and doesn't require much technical skill.

I usually do the backing up via System Preferences. Simply delete the account. You will get asked if you want to archive it in a disk image.

Again, using System Preferences to delete/archive the account does not preserve ACLs, permissions, ownership, etc..

Maybe I'm a dinosaur, but I rsync my $HOME to a small NAS daily, via a root cron job.
Given how few actual changes there are (other than data in Dropbox which is excluded from the rsync anyway) after the initial heavy run, daily rsyncs take mere seconds.
It's as maybe not quite as good as time machine or whatever it's called, but this method has worked for the past few years. I have had H/D's crash on me once or twice - oh yes, but never lost userdata, thanks to this method.
I suppose this is a pretty decent illustration of 'whatever works for $you' :D

Using rsync will also make it a recursive backup which is both faster and more practical than using Disk Utility. The downside is that it force you to the CLI.

Aaaah, but the CLI is a haven of refuge in troubled and unstable gooey times. It is predictable, it is always your friend.
The CLI doesn't care if you see other shells, or even have a beer after severely misusing it.
*cough*

What's your rsync command, the full line please?

Not terribly adventurous:

rsync -avz -e ssh /Users/username/ someuser@10.0.0.100:/home/username/macbackup/

ssh keys exist on both ends, I should add, thus eliminating any need for a manual login

HTH!

This is a good hint. But... There are things to consider before you go there...
There is no point doing this unless you are sure that it is a system level problem. First establish whether it is a system or a user level problem by reproducing the problem with a fresh user account. If you restore the user account, it may just bring back all that bad stuff.
Hope this helps :)

Backing up your Mac is simple and important. We recommend it for everyone.

Back up with Time Machine

Time Machine is the built-in backup feature of your Mac. It’s a complete backup solution, but you can use other backup methods as well.

Store files in iCloud

You can also use iCloud and iCloud Drive to store files, such as your photos, documents, and music.

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Restore your Mac from a backup

When you have a backup, you can use it to restore your files at any time, including after the original files are deleted from your Mac.

Prepare your Mac for service

Making a backup is an important part of preparing your Mac for service, especially because some types of repair might require erasing or replacing your hard drive.

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How much space do I need for a backup?

To see the size of a specific file or folder, click it once and then press Command-I. To see storage information about your Mac, click the Apple menu in the top-left of your screen. Choose About This Mac and click the Storage tab. For Time Machine backups, it's good to use a drive that has at least twice the storage capacity of your Mac.

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Free up storage on your Mac

macOS can save space by storing your content in the cloud. This isn't a backup, but it includes new tools to make it easier to find and remove large or unwanted files before you make a backup.

Erase or format a storage device

You can use Disk Utility if you need to erase or format a storage device.

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