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Hello All,

There have been a few discussions about using or not using the user template folder for populating a new user's folder.

Over a number of years now, we have used the user template folder for loading in settings, license information and auto updating information depending on the application.

The question I have is whether people are having any luck with Mojave and the user template folder being populated with these types of files. I know many of you aren't touching the user template and use scripts and LaunchAgents to populate the folders at login time. We know we have a lot of work to do to prepare for changing our deployments.

In the short term though, any thoughts out there on this?

Thank you in advance...

@deploy2020 I'm surprised anything worked if you cleared the whole English.lproj directory!

Hi Guys,

Thanks a lot for this great question and for everyone's replies. I was running into the exact same problem.
We run a set of applications that need to be configured extensively, so the user template has really been a vital component of our system.

I disabled SIP and put all my files into the en_UK.lproj and it worked for me.
Then re-enabled SIP and everything works fine so far for me it seems.

I know it's not the best of ideas, but I don't have any other solution yet. (Will have to study hard.)

Good luck everyone and thanks for these great threads.

Apart from the different path, using the user template still works fine on Catalina in my testing so far.

I use the user template quite frequently, BUT I have had to adjust any scripts I have that directly write to it with macOS version checking statements to allow for the new location in Catalina but leaving the old location alone for High Sierra and Mojave.

@blackholemac That's precisely what I've done as well :)

@blackholemac you have an example of the adjustments you made to have the macOS version checked in your scripts?

I've now discovered that the user template in Catalina (and consequently Big Sur) is basically broken. Whether this is a bug or intentional is anyone's guess.

Firstly it doesn't apply permissions correctly to things in the template, so for instance I have an app in the template desktop directory with 755 permissions, but when a new user account is created it only has 700 applied to it.

Also it seems that any directories that are created from within the template have some sort of ACL applied to them stopping any new user from creating them, even though they're the owner.

I've now discovered that the user template in Catalina (and consequently Big Sur) is basically broken. Whether this is a bug or intentional is anyone's guess.

Firstly it doesn't apply permissions correctly to things in the template, so for instance I have an app in the template desktop directory with 755 permissions, but when a new user account is created it only has 700 applied to it.

Also it seems that any directories that are created from within the template have some sort of ACL applied to them stopping any new user from creating them, even though they're the owner.


I use the Non-localized user template folder only anymore. Works well in Catalina and Big Sur for custom changes.
I use the Non-localized user template folder only anymore. Works well in Catalina and Big Sur for custom changes.

Interesting, I thought I tried that and it didn't work. It also means the "fill user templates" functionality probably wouldn't then work.

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