Ask MacRx took a hiatus for a few weeks in December but we’re back for 2012 and here to help try and answer more of your Mac and iDevice questions. Today we hear from a reader who has more user accounts than desired after restoring from a Time Machine backup:
I recently replaced the drive in my Macbook, upgrading to a larger capacity drive. For the first time I used Time Machine to restore my applications, settings and data files. I was surprised to find that I had to name the restoration differently than the account named on the destination drive. I followed the on-screen prompts and successfully transferred the data from my old drive to the new one.
My question is regarding the fact that I know have two accounts on the new drive – the account established when I first installed Snow Leopard on the new drive, and the account containing my restored data. Is there a way I can consolidate the two accounts into one, applying my old settings to the newly established account? Any guidance will be appreciated.
Phil
Hi Phil,
The way to proceed would have been to not create a new account on the Snow Leopard system after installation but instead immediately restore your old account from the Time Machine backup. If you want to repeat the install/migration process you can still do that.
If not, there is no automatic way to merge the contents of the two accounts, but you can move items over in the same fashion as performing a Manual Mac System Migration. Hope that helps.
I appreciate your response and it confirms other sources of information. Thank you so much.
Readers, have any additional suggestions on this topic, or corrections/clarifications on the advice above? If so, please leave your thoughts in the comments.
