For example, say you want to swap out your startup drive for a much faster SSD with a 512 MB capacity—enough to hold all your current data and allow for future growth. The easy solution is to move your home folder to a different drive.

How to Move Your Home Folder to a New Location

Before you begin, make sure you have a current backup, using whatever method is your favorite. For example, you might clone your current startup drive, which still contains your home folder, to an external bootable drive. That way, you can restore everything to how it was before you began this process, if necessary. Once your backup is complete, follow these steps:

Verify That Your New Home Folder Location Is Functioning

At this point, you should make sure everything is working as it should. One way to do this is by creating a test file in TextEdit and saving it to your new Home folder. Check to see if the file appears in the new location. You can also look at the old Home location. If its icon is no longer a house, it isn’t the active Home folder anymore. Try out a few applications use and your Mac for a few days. If all is well, you can delete the original home folder.