Account on external HD
Simple question (I could try, but I haven't done that yet): is it possible to create a full account that entirely resides on a removable HD? The use case is that I have a machine at work on which I don't want to install personal stuff, yet I have a personal account that I need to access from time to time (with my personal email, for example, or some apps I purchased). So I'm imagining that when I really need the personal account, I would plug in my removable HD, and otherwise, the machine stays the office machine, without any of my stuff.
You have two options depending on your needs:
- You can have you OS and all your data installed on an external drive and then boot from your external drive by connecting your drive, and booting your mac while holding the option/alt key and select your external drive
- The second option is to move you home folder to the external drive; this is done by many users who have a combination of an SSD and a HHD but you can do something similar depending on your needs. Here is a very straightforward tutorial on how to move your home folder to an external drive