OS X :: Mac Lost User Preferences
Dec 18, 2008
For no obvious reason, my intel Imac with 10.5.5 seems to have forgotten all my personal preferences, favorites, dock items, address book items and calendar entries - oh and email has forgotten me too! All the folders seem to be in place, nothing's moved as far as I can tell. What's going on? Is this a common hic-up?
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Jan 7, 2011
I changed the short name of my home directory oblivious to the consequences. I have searched the internet high and low and have found a few threads already posted (including an Apple support article) that relate directly to this issue. However, although the root of the problem is the same in that I changed the short name, the outcome is slightly different and I can't restore all my preferences in the manner detailed in these articles. I have a Mac OS X 10.4.11. Here is exactly what I did and what is going on:
1. I went into Get Info. in the home directory icon in Finder.
Say the original name was john, I changed it to Fred.
2. Since then, when I open any applications such as Skype, iTunes, iCalendar etc. all of the settings have been reverted to default making it appear as if I've only bought the Mac. However all my documents and music files are still there and can be accessed normally in the newly named directory. My desktop and widgets are also fine.
3. Now when I go to Macintosh HD and click into users there are 3 things:
- The newly named home directory Fred with the house icon.
- A folder with the old home directory's name, that being john. Inside there are Documents, Library, Music and Pictures folders but only the Library folder seems to contain anything important, which I hope are all my preferences. The other three are effectively empty. Like I said I can access my music files etc. normally.
- Lastly the shared folder.
I haven't turned off or restarted my laptop because reading on threads it appears as if I can cause damage or end up not being able to access my mac. The two solutions I've found online are these: [URL]. The problem with this one for me is that I can't rename the new directory with the old name - it just won't let me. [URL]. The problem with this solution and another I found is that I think they are assuming the old directory - john - is in fact still a directory but in my case it is a folder.
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Dec 21, 2010
I was just doing a superduper backup which failed halfway through because i didnt realise my wd passport drive that was plugged in was auto backing stuff up and there must have been a conflict. Now, I dont know what to do. Email accounts.gone. Any registered apps, still there but reg details gone, any and all system preferences (like trackpad setup just came to mind) gone. Dock and all the items in it and crap I made to ,make it look fancy. gone. Stuff that loads at the stuff...gone.
I know this must have to do with my user directory but wtf? I know my timemachine backup is fine as i did one before all the problems, but is my superduperbackup screwed? I cant stress how screwed I am, I got reports due right before xmas and im like at square 1 now.
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Feb 28, 2009
recently my macbook charger has broken so i bought a new one and no matter how long i charge it it dies instantly as soon as i take out the charger and when it died i lost my system preferences app and i cannot find my disc
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May 8, 2010
I cannot bring up my system preferences under the blue apple icon or through a search. I installed and ran MacJanitor v 1.3 a month or so ago and perhaps that's the cause? I have been missing my Mail prefs for a long time so switched to Thunderbird but I don't know if the two incidents are related. iMac G5,1.6 GHz, 1.5 GB, OS 10.3.9
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Mar 3, 2012
Find or reinstalling the systems preferences as well as the settings icon is lost. both were put in to the trash and trash has since been emptied . Is there any way of getting them back with out loseing eveything on my mac
Info:iMac (27-inch Mid 2010), iOS 5.0.1
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Apr 22, 2012
i lost my ssystem preferences on my macbook pro snaow leaopard. How do i get it back
Info:MacBookPro, Mac OS X (10.6.8)
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May 12, 2012
On my 2.16 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo iMac when updating to 10.7.4 with Software update I lost all my display settings except 960x600 and 1920x1200. This affects all user accounts. I also downloaded the combo updater and reinstalled but have the same results. How can I recover the additional settings?
Info:
iMac, Mac OS X (10.7.4), Recent Update Problem
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Jan 11, 2010
I am a new macbook pro user. Today I logged on and found I had lost system preferences and time machine. Also, my itunes logo is gone. Don't know what else is missing yet, but I can't find out how to get these back. Nor do I have any idea how they disappeared.
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Sep 21, 2009
I put my mac mini away a couple years ago, and i decided to bring it back out to use and i can't remember the password on it. any idea how to reset it? or any way to format without the password?
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Feb 12, 2010
Running OS 10.6.2. A couple of days ago I noticed that my iCal was completely blank. Everything gone. Odd, but not a big problem - I just restored it from my iPhone. I just rebooted twenty minutes ago and my user profile has been completely reset - from the desktop settings to individual application settings. I haven't had any data loss as far as I can tell, but every single application setting has been reset - I've lost my bookmarks, startup settings, RSS subscriptions, everything that could possibly be customized within an application.
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Apr 4, 2008
When we set "user" based preferences in WGM they are not rolled out to the users (setting "computer", or "computer group" preferences works as expected). For example, if I set iCal as a login item for a specific user, then the user logs out and back in, iCal does not start as a login item. The preference *is* set on the server however because if the user unpairs their account from the server, then logs out, then logs in and re-pairs with the server, the preference is rolled out accordingly. What could be the reason for this? Why aren't user preferences being updated at every login? Is there a way I can force user preferences to be updated at login?
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Aug 22, 2007
I have a PowerBook G4, and deleted my preferences ( user, me, library, preferences) to speed up my machine. all was well, except that I lost all my email in Mail and can't find it.
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Nov 11, 2008
I have searched these forums and Google to no avail; perhaps I am asking the wrong I had, and still have, the default Admin User account. I installed my MAC Office and Fusion among other things in this account. I then joined the MAC to my office Windows domain which created a new user. When I log in as the new user all I see is the default dock; no applications. And all setting were lost; I think I can understand that one. So the question is, how do I get the new user access to the applications installed under the Admin user?
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Mar 12, 2012
I cant open the User and Group preferences.
Info:
MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.3)
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Jun 3, 2014
So this is a really silly question but I wanted to know, how do you change the name of your home drive? Like I know how you can change the user name in system pref. but how do you change the name next to the little house icon? Because I'm really super bad at explaining things, a picture is attached below.
Info:
MacBook Pro, OS X Mavericks (10.9), Late 2011 model
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Apr 9, 2012
Lion boots into login screen. My profile is NOT listed. Is there a recovery method?
Info:
iMac, Mac OS X (10.7.3)
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Sep 4, 2014
New MacBook Pro. Created test user account for apple to debug a problem. Problem fixed, I tried to delete account, but it just hangs sating deleting account. Trying to quit fails saying System Preferences is busy.
Can force quit, but account is still there.
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Mar 23, 2010
Sometime in the past couple of days I lost write permission to my own home directory (/Users/yalla) - The attributes for my homedirectory are correct, but there are extended attributes as well, and I believe this is where the problem lies.
For Documents, Downloads etc, I am allowed to create/modify/delete files and directories, but under my pure homedirectory ~yalla I am all of a sudden unable to write, meaning I cannot create for instance a new .bashrc (not that I need to since I already have one), or create new catalogues.
I have tried both from Terminal and from Finder, and I am not allowed to create new directories under ny homedir. By going to Finder and going under "Get Info" for my homedir, I have gone to Sharing & Permissions and changed from Read Only to Read & Write which seems to fix it. I have however not been there before and made any changes, and I am therefore worried that by changing this to R&W I am fixing a symptom and not the core problem.
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Apr 17, 2012
How do i change lost admin user password?
Info:iMac, Mac OS X (10.7.3)
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Aug 22, 2014
I'm wanting to delete a user (non-administrator) account and it has been "... removing user account and directory" for the last 12 hours. I also cannot restart the system because of this message. OS X 10.9.4
Info:
iMac, Mac OS X (10.7.5)
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Apr 1, 2010
I do NOT want to change it; only recover it with Single User Mode.
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Mar 27, 2012
how do I get it back
Info:
Safari, Mac OS X (10.6.8)
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Feb 4, 2012
With the update to OS-X 10.7.3 did anyone lose the entire Library folder from their user directory? I didn't notice until I started working on the installation of an application (beta version) and found the my entire ~/Library/ folder gone, all 57+ GBytes of it. I'm restoring it from Time Machine two days ago, but I wonder what happened with the update to completely remove it.
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Mar 30, 2012
I have created an account for my wife under Lion and I cannot get her user preferences for scroll bars to work. I set them to show always but the next time she logs in they revert to the previous setting---based on input. I can watch it happen with the preferences folder open and set to show a list sorted according to modified date. As soon as I close the system preferences, it reverts.
Her account is an admin account so it should work, don't you think. My personal account works fine and I tried moving the prefernces file to her library/preferences folder. No good.
Info:
Mac OS, Mac OS X (10.7.3)
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Jun 3, 2010
I have just lost my user account that I normally use. It happened after I changed my name for my user account in the Finder. I clicked Get Info and changed the name from Helen Andersson to only Helen. and after that nothing is the same and i cant go back either that I know of. When I start the computer now everything that I had on my desktop and in my Itunes, Icalendar, addressbook, and Aperture are not there. I have found them (well at least what i had on my desktop and my itunes but not the other information), so they are still on the computer but I dont know how to get back to my normal user account.
When I check my System preferences Account I only have one account so its not like I made a new one and have two. But I can also see that the one I am using now that has nothing on it is made today.
So please if anyone can help me get my iMac to go back to the old user and all its settings the same way I would very much appreciate it. Because this user has nothing and I have to start everything from scratch even my internet settings I had to download again to be able to go on the internet. This user has nothing.
Information:
iMac
Mac OS X (10.4.11)
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Apr 21, 2012
I've a MBP running 10.6.8. When I open the Accounts preferences, System preferences quits unexpectedly.
Info:
MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.8)
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Jan 12, 2010
How can i transfer eveyhing exactly as is it from main admin user to another admin user and then delete the main admin user...???
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Jan 12, 2010
+can You Guys Pls Explain Me... How Can I Transfer Eveyhing Exactly As Is It From Main Admin User To Another Admin User And Then Delete The Main Admin User...???
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May 12, 2010
I'm not talking about the System Preferences app itself, I'm talking about the settings within the app. So for instance, the security settings, and the mouse settings, energy saver, etc.
Where can I find the settings files on my Mac so I can back them up?
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