Frequently, when a macOS has not been properly cleaned or maintained for years, the solution of formatting the computer and reinstalling the system from scratch is offered. It’s drastic but it’s effective, you restart with a factory macOS and the computer regains its ease.
With macOS Monterey, this process is no longer necessary, as a new option in the System Preferences menu makes it easier to get started. Now well, there is another method that can help you in some cases that doesn’t involve deleting anything.
A new user profile in macOS can solve a lot for you
What you can do is take advantage of the fact that all preferences and settings files are saved in your user folder and create a user profile in the brand new macOS. If you had problems with the profile you were using so far, you will be able to generate the default configuration in this new user without difficulty.
In order to create this new user, you will need to go to System Preferences and access the “Users & Groups” panel there. Click on the padlock to enter the administrator password and be able to modify the options:
second act click on the ‘+’ button to add a new user. Give it administrator powers in the ‘New account’ section and finish filling in all the requested information (the account name must be different from that of the profile you have already created):
Now that you have created a new user, you can continue to use your applications from the initial computer configuration. The task left to you is sign out of iCloud on the old profile, sign in on the new one (you can’t have two macOS users with the same Apple ID) and move all files from one profile to another. You can do this by dropping them into the “Shared” directory of the macOS Users folder.
Remember, anything you’ve stored and synced in iCloud will be downloaded automatically, so you don’t need to move it. When you make sure you have passed all the files, you can delete the user profile that gave you trouble with the ‘-‘ button in the Users panel that you see in the screenshots above.
