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Ask HN: What's the best way to separate work and personal projects on a Mac?

4 points by saadatq ↗ HN
I've started using my "work" MacBook Pro for passion /side projects (really don't want to carry two laptops around), and I'm just curious if any developers have advice for how to separate work/fun projects.

Do you just create a separate account on the Mac?

7 comments

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mholt
Macbook Pros are powerful - working in virtual machines is usually a good experience, given the right virtualization software (i.e. you can do better than VirtualBox). Using a VM for work or personal, and the host machine for the other, has been sufficient for me in most cases. As for which one you put in a VM, that depends on the nature of your work compared to that of your personal projects.
yen223
To add to this: If you're comfortable with command-line utilities, Vagrant is amazing for VM management.
saadatq
Thanks! Using Vagrant already.
mzjs
What's wrong with seperate accounts? Provides the right level of easily switching between projects vs. too hard to switch when distracted.
mod
Do you own the machine? If not, I wouldn't build any personal projects on them unless you don't mind your company owning them.

On my machine (which I own), I just keep them in different folders. I tend to use the same environments for work and side projects.

What problems are you having keeping them separate?

rahimnathwani
How about dual-booting? A Macbook Pro will boot from an SD card or USB 3.0. You can happily run OS X from an SSD in a USB 3.0 enclosure. Just hold down the 'option' key during power-up.

As others have said, you could use virtualisation software. However, this will only work if you're happy installing that on your regular hard drive, and if you don't need hardware-accelerated graphics in an OS X guest.

mijndert
> Do you just create a separate account on the Mac?

Yes. It's the easiest option and you can always remove the personal account if work doesn't allow it.