Take the 2-minute tour ×

I recently enabled FileVault on Snow Leopard, and after doing so, found a directory /Users/<myusername>.4529809818604982560, containing the original (unencrypted) contents of my home directory, owned by root:wheel with permissions 700, side-by-side with my normal home directory. Does anyone know why this was created (maybe a temporary backup that didn't get erased), or whether deleting it will be harmful?

share|improve this question
add comment

1 Answer

What I always do in this case (i.e. file you think should have been deleted, but aren't sure if it's still used) is rename the file or move it someplace else temporarily. Shut down, reboot, and try to get into your account. If everything appears intact, you can mount your correct Filevault home, etc., and after a couple days haven't noticed any ill effects, then delete the old file. But of course, if things are all screwed up, just move the file back to where it was before and return to head scratching.

(PS. Before trying this, make sure there is a second account on the machine, with admin privileges, so that if you are hosed you can use that account to log back in and move the file back where it belongs.)

share|improve this answer
add comment

Your Answer

