MacOS – Which directories should I back up to save all of the data

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Would backing up my home directory be enough or does OS X saves important files outside of it I should be aware of? This is not supposed to be a full OS backup, I only want my data. Applications' configuration details can be re-created and so on but other things such as bookmarks I do consider important.

Currently backing up:

  • /Users/Crocodile (except for Trash & Library)
  • /Users/Crocodile/Library/Application Support/Firefox/Profiles (FF bookmarks)
  • /Users/Crocodile/Library/Fonts (user-specific fonts)

I use CalDAV for calendar and IMAP for email so no need to backup Mail/Calendar directories, right?

[edit] Added the user-specific Fonts directory. The system-wide directory, located at /Library/Fonts, is not needed IMO since a OS reinstall will include (most of) them; plus these can easily be copied from another machine.

Best Answer

A lot of applications store critical information in ~/Library so you might be better off with backing up your whole user folder (with the exception of Trash of course). If you use incremental backups the size will not be too big after the first run. And you can at least exclude ~/Library/Caches anyway. You also may want to back up any registration codes for applications (by keeping them in separate file for instance) you've bought so you can reinstall them easily.

OTOH you might want to consider the time required to rebuild all your configurations and installations from scratch and compare this to the price of an external USB drive.

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