Changing home directory name

Hello,
I have a macbook OS X version 10.7.5
I bought this computer years ago used and am yet to figure out how to change the directory name.
Help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!

Open the Users & Groups pane of System Preferences, unlock it, control-click your account, choose Advanced Options, and change it.
(102663)

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How do I change home directory name?

In FINDER, the home directory name is from an old employee. How can I change it?

Log out and then into a different user account, or create one from System Preferences. If so desired, control-click the account in the Accounts or Users & Groups pane of System Preferences, choose Advanced Options, and change the name and home properties; if the computer happens to be running Mac OS X 10.4, the instructions are significantly different.
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How to change Home Directory name

I'm giving my daughter my old MacBook (OS 10.6.3) and want to change the home directory to her name, so that it looks like it's her computer and not mine.
Do I have to wipe the laptop and reinstall system and other software, or can I delete my old account and make hers the "My Account" or Home or however it is called. Would that have potentially devastating consequences for Privileges, for example?
Changing the Home User name to hers in the Accounts Preferences window had no effect on the Users directory (in the Finder).
The problem my be nothing more than cosmetic, but I'd like her to see her name as a user and not mine (she is a teenager, after all)
Thank you.

Hi
The simplest solution is to add a new Admin account for her, log out from your user, log in as her user, and delete your old user in System Preferences. When you delete your account you'll have the option to save the files in an archive file or delete immediately (which will irrevocably delete all files) - so make sure you have backed up or moved any files you want to keep (music, pictures, etc).
Matt

Changing home directory name in Mavericks

I'm logged in as root and have navigated to the /Users directory. I'm instructed to change the name as I would any other Mac folder although it appears to be read-only. Any thoughts as to why?
TIA,
David

There must be some corporate directive that Apple support is not allowed to use the command line. That makes this process 3 times harder than it should be. Follow these instructions instead: https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3872

How to change the "short name (account name?)" and home directory name?

Hi,
I recently purchased a new iMac and migrated account info from my MacBook Pro. I happened to use random account name during migration without knowing it will not be easy to change the short name (account name?) and home directory name. As a result, I am now having extremely confusing short name and home directory name on my new iMac.
I did online search to find out how to change the two names, but I could only found somethig like "enabiling root user and....." I have no idea what it was talking about and I don't want to take risk altering such advance set up manually.
Please advice how I can change the short name and home directory name safely without much PC knowledge.
Thank you very much in advance.

There are a few ways of doing this. The easiest method is logging into the first account and copying everything to an external drive (or flash drive or whatever), which changes the permissions so that others can see the files.
Then, login with the new account and copy the files over. Once they are copied, the correct permissions will be applied again (so other people on your computer can't access them).
If you can't do this method for one reason or other, you can do some terminal commands to change the ownership of the files. Login to the new account. If it is an admin account, open terminal and type the following command:
sudo chown -R -v yourusername:admin /Users/originalaccountnamehere
That should change the ownership of the files from your old account to the new one. At that point, you can simply drag the files into place.

Changed shortname and home directory name and don't know how to set it back

so i changed my short name and home directory name because i bought the macbook used and i was trying to rename it to my name.
Like all the others now the desktops back to default without any of my files/music, i know its still here its in the old account folder how do i just reverse this so i can have my desktop and everything back.
heres what it is like:
my users folder there is a home icon called "Josh" which is my name, then there is a folder icon called "nick" which is the old name and it contains all my files etc. then a shared folder icon.
what do i do?
p.s. i tried the method of adding "_new" onto the home icon called Josh and it said i couldn't change it because its part of Mac OS X or something...

if you bought a used computer the first thing you should do is reformat the hard drive and reinstall the OS. anything else is less than prudent. it will also let you name your computer and your user as you like.

How to change home folder name

How to change home folder name ?

Here are the instructions from Apple on changing user short name or home directory name. I've used this on a couple of used MacBooks I've bought on eBay. And remember to go into System Preferences>Sharing and change the Computer Name in there.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1428

User account name and home directory name do not match

A month ago I bought the latest iMac and used Migration assistant to migrate all of my data on over.
Everything went well... Except that my new iMac would not let me use my old user name. I had to create somethign else.
So my user (admin) account name is not the same as my Home directory name. (I only have 1 user account and 1 user Home directory... they both are named differently).
This has not caused problems, but I want to iron this out. I tried using System Preferences/Users and groups to change my user account name to match the name of my home directory name (which has my old user name)... but when I did that it said "Name not available".
Long time Mac user but I'm not comfortable doing anything deeper without some input & advice.
Thanks in advance!

I enable the Root user as outlined in the Apple Way instructions...logged out and loged in as the rooot user... but I really don't want to change the name of my user directory... That's the name I want to keep as a User.
Even logged in as a Root User...
I tried to change my current User Name to match by directory name, but it said Name is Not Available
I also tried to create a new User name that matches my directory name...same results Name is Not Available
Is there a sudo entry that will change the User to match my Directory name (which I want to keep and use)?
Thank in advance!

Change My Home Directory Name to Match My Short Name

Somewhere in the process of Migration and Setup Assistant accross 3 computers, I need to change my home folder name to match my shortname. It is getting a little confusing to have two short "names."
My home folder is - admin
My short name is - bobbyv
I would like tho change my home folder to bobbyv
The admin account as you can guess is root, i have two other accounts, one that is admin and one that is not. I know about the advanced options in the accounts preference pane, but I do not want to change in without knowing what I'm doing because I do not want to have an empty and clean new home folder, my data is important.
Thanks everyone.

Changing the short name is possible, but it is rather involved. Search for "change short name" on this site. It's easiest to create a new account and then transfer your data to that account.

Can't change home directory for standard users (admin is OK)

I'm can't relocate home directories for standard users. Relocating works fine for admin users.
When a standard user logs in, they get a message (paraphased) saying "the home directory is not available. If it is located on a server, the server might not be online". If I change the standard user to admin, this message goes away, and everything is fine.
I created a standard user
moved the home directory using the terminal as root: mv UserName /otherlocation/UserName
I then went into users and groups, other options and changed the home directory location.
Rebooted, then tried to log in as the standard users.
Next try - Deleted the standard user and created the same user with admin rights. Followed the above steps and everything works fine.
I don't want this user to have admin rights on my system. Any ideas

Hi,
the AFP is has always been switched on. As for the path I believe this to be correct. The path I am using is:
afp://musicserver/Users
I'm not at the server right now so I mat have got the afp and : and / in the wrong order here but they are correct on the server.
This however does not seem to put the a folder in the Users folder. Could it be something to do with my external hard drive? I am using a Mac Mini as our server (not ideal but fine for us, or at least was) this is booted from our external hard drive. This is the main system drive which is where the Users data is also stored. I have tried all possible paths I can thing of from replacing the 'musicserver' with the IP address. I have also tried adding the name of the drive to the path (System) but all does not work.
Are you able to suggest anything I have missed? Perhaps I'm doing the path wrong?
Thanks again
Chris

Changed home folder name, how do I get my desktop back?

I changed the home folder name and when I logged off and then back on to the computer, my desktop was completely different. I was told by apple care that it had to be corrected through the command lines. I would greatly appreciate someone's help with this issue!
iMac Mac OS X (10.4.10)

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107854

Changing Home Directory?

Hey there, I was just wondering if there is any way to change my home directory in Mountain Lion 10.8.2 because I cant find Accounts under System Preferences which is where I usually set my home directory from. Thanks a lot

Hey there,
As MacJack has said, 'Users & Groups' has replaced 'Accounts'. To adjust Home Directory you need to go to Users & Groups > Login Options > Network Account Server > Join > Then you can open Directory Utility from there..
More or less the same as Lion 10.7
Hope this helps
Regards,
Zet.

Imovie '11 change home directory

iOwn iMove '11.
My older MacPro was getting slow, so I used a SSD as the boot drive and houses only the applications.
How can I make my old internal RAID array with lots of space the home directory for iMovie and NOT the internal SSD which does not have sufficient space.
thank you.
-andrew
(MacPro early 2008)
(16g RAM)
(latest 10.8.x. software, alwasy updated)

First, move all your projects and events to the internal Raid. All moves must be done within iMovie.
See this post for directions.
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-4141
When you import new footage from a Camera, you can set the Raid as the target on the import screen. That will remain the default until you change it.
For imports from a file, you can choose the drive before you import. Highlight it in the Event Library.
By the way, if you really want to change your Home Directory for all purposes, see this web page from frequent contributor Pondini.
http://pondini.org/OSX/SetupOther.html
I have mine set up this way, with my SSD handling OSX and Apps, and all of my iTunes, Aperture, documents, etc. on the internal hard drive of my iMac. Imovie and FCPX stuff is on a series of external drives.

Changing HOME folder name

Just upgraded to 10.5. My Home folder (the little house icon) won't let me change its name.
The message I get is:
'martinwhite' can't be modified or deleted because it is needed by OS X
How do I rename it?
Cheers,
martinwhite !!!!!

MartinJapan2007 wrote:
Just upgraded to 10.5. My Home folder (the little house icon) won't let me change its name.
The message I get is:
'martinwhite' can't be modified or deleted because it is needed by OS X
How do I rename it?
Cheers,
martinwhite !!!!!
That's called your "short" name.
Open System Preferences, open Accounts, select yours.
Click the lock icon below to open it up. You need to enter your password.
Now, right-click your name and you will see "Advanced Options"
Here you can change your "short name"
Please read the warning and be sure you have a very recent backup - - just in case.

Can't change home directory location on 10.6.8 server

After setting up 10.6.8 server. We want the location of the home dir to be in a sub folder in the User folder on the servers HD. The problem is any shared folder we set up the client computers get the message that the home dir can not be found. The only way we have been able to make this work is by letting the home dir to reside in the Users folder. Why can I not make it any shared folder anywhere?

In your client Network preference pane you should set as DNS record the IP address of your server. Then restart the client machine. I don't know if this is a standard solution, but for me it fixes the problem.
Lorenzo

Changing home directory name

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