Delete guest account

does the guest account on my macbook pro take up space that could be used for other applications or files?
If it does then i would like to remove (not simply disable) it........ someone help a girl out please ;D

If nothing is in it then it takes little to no space, if you are not using it then nothing is in it.
You can't delete it, but you can disable it.

Similar Messages

Not possible to delete guest account's picture

Under Pref.Accounts, there are no pics for the Guest Account.
If enabling this account, there will be a pic in the log-in window for the guest account.
The pic is known, but I need to delete it, but cannot find it anywhere.
I duplicated one iMac from another, and this pic was on the first computer originally.

This worked for me:
1. Log in as Guest
2. Close all Finder windows
3. Make sure you are in the Finder (it should say “Finder” just to the right of the  logo in the menu bar
4. Type ⇧⌘G (Shift-Command-G) and copy-paste the following:
/System/Library/CoreServices/CoreTypes.bundle/Contents/Resources/
5. Open Address Book (this is where it's important you're logged in as Guest)
6. Click on the “Guest Account” entry, and click the Edit button
7. Double-click the picture
8. Drag the UserIcon.icns file to the picture you want to replace and hit Return
9. Log out of Guest completely

Can not delete Guest account. Can you help?

Hi!
I discovered a guest account on my machine which I do not remember creating. It is called "Guest account". I managed to disable it but I cannot delete it because the Minus sign is dimmed.
How do I get rid of this guest account?
Thanks

Hi Nardac,
Not exactly sure what you are trying to say: Yes, the guest account can be disabled and I just did that as mentioned already. As a result it is listed as "disabled" under my main administrator account.
As long as there is listed as an existing account I still believe that it does exist, sorry.
Perhaps a method to delete it does exist, anyone knowledgeable out there willing to share?
Thanks

When i upgraded to Lion, it deleted my main user account and only left my guest account, how can i fix this?

My main user account was deleted, and only my guest account remained. I don't know my password for the guest account anymore, so i couldn't log in, i had to use my time machine to restore to the day before when i was on 10.6.7. How do i fix this?

I've stumbled upon the solution to get back into our machines.
At the login screen, when presented with 'guest account' only, do the following:
tap enter while holding down 'control' + 'option' + 'command'
...you should be reunited with your usual login personalities.
Happy days!

How to delete Guest User Account

I just got my Mac book Pro and I'm new to Mac. I created a Guest User Account and now I want to delete it. But the - (minus) option is grey out. How can I delete the Guest User Account? I have two accounts listed right now. The Admin and the Guest Account. Thanks for your help.
p.s. I just found out I couldn't even open the folders under the Guest directory! How come? I am the Admin and should be able to do that. What did I do wrong? Help!!!

I should also say that sometime in the future you might have a problem with something, and one of the first things you should test is, do you have the same problem in another account, so having a Guest Account is a good thing.
You just log in as Guest and test to see if you have the same problem. So it might be a good idea to leave it active, for it takes up very little space. I always have more than one Account, and this new Guest Account sounds good to me, I like the idea that everything is deleted after log off.

Deleting a guest account

how do i delete a guest account when i cant even click to disable it becuase it is always greyed out!!!!!!

Have you unlocked the padlock in the lower left of System Preferences > Users and Groups?

Guest Account Bug Resets User Accounts and Deletes Files on Snow Leopard

Hi Everyone
Well basically, I hadn't used my Guest Account since upgrading to snow leopard, and I accidentaly clicked it instead of my user account this morning, to find that when I logged into my normal account ALL my files, settings, mail etc had been reset.
So I'm posting this to let people know, (and hopefully Apple if they don't know about this) what's happening.
Here's the post I sent to Apple Feedback:
Hi,
Well basically, I upgraded to snow leopard recently, everything was working fine, I've upgraded to 10.6.1 and have all the latest software updates etc, so anyway this morning I turned my computer on and accidentaly clicked on the Guest Account on the login screen instead of my normal one, so it started trying to load the guest account (which I hadn't loaded since before the upgrade).
So I wait about two minutes, and nothing atall happens apart from it loading on the logon page, so I pressed Enter to return me to the login window.
So once I was returned I logged on as my normal user, to find my Desktop reset, my Dock reset, my Documents, Music and Photos reset and all my software reset.
So I restarted my computer and logged on again, it was exactly the same, everything gone. At which point I looked in the Users folder to find that my User profile had been removed and replaced with a fresh one with the same name. So I then spent half an hour restoring everything from my Time Machine backup.
I hope Apple are aware of this issue and would greatly appreciate to hear back on the status of what's happening about it, as it doesn't seem to be an isolated issue it's been happening to other people over the last month.
Here's a few posts from other people who've had this problem, and an article on the CNET site MacFixIt about the bug:
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=10123656#10123656
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2157518&start=15&tstart=0
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2171494&tstart=0
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2142272&start=30&tstart=0
Reports on the Internet:
http://9to5mac.com/snowleopards_eatusers
http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-10346974-263.htmll?tag=mncol;txt
To clarify, I have an iMac (aluminium 20" one), with a 2.4ghz processor and 3GB of Ram, please update me on anything that's going on with this issue as I don't want it to continue happening to others who might not have backups,
Thanks,
Daniel.
So if anybody else expieriences this issue your not alone, there's a couple of other posts from people who've had problems above in the middle of my feedback letter. Unfortunately in my case it deleted my Home folder and replaced it with a new one, so if this happens to you then your only option is to restore from a backup. You can attempt to use file recovery software if you don't have one, but I haven't tried this and don't know how well it would work.
Hope I've helped clarify things for anybody who this has happened to,
Daniel.
Message was edited by: dbferrari

Maybe it will be usefull but last days I tried to login as *Guest* (because I didn't want to logout as my user). In *system preferences* I allowed guest login, then I fast switched to *Guest Account*, do some changes in profile like mouse movement and so on, then I correctly logged out and logged once more to my account. Now I affraid off rebooting macbook (I always hybernate system with changed default settings which store memory into HDD) until the fix will be released. Probably the data was not removed, because I was logged in as me and */Users/$USER* was still in use. Now I am wondering if I can reboot safelly macbook without losing my data..
For backup do I need to use some command for backuping home to windows machine through *SMB*? because unix like systems have links and so on.. (in *AIX OS* I have to use "*rsync*" command, which copy whole data exactly as it is stored on filesystem - if there is link it will copy only that link, not file which is linked...)

Workaround for deleting all files in guest account?

Just wondering if anyone knows how to prevent all files from being deleted after a guest user logs off?

Don't use the guest account. Create a new one in the Users & Groups preference pane.

How do I permanently delete a guest account?

For some reason the minus sign is greyed out to delete account.

If this is the Guest account installed with OS X, then it's not to be deleted. If you created your own separate guest account, then you can delete it. Just click on the lock icon and enter your admin password. Select the account and click on the Delete [-] button.

Save work deleted in Guest Account.

I'm an animation teacher with a brand new iMac. I set up a guest account for my students to play with and record work while having my personal account as Admin. For two days, the kids used iMovie to imput and save their projects in the guest account movie folder. At the end of this, I shut down the computer (previously it had been on stand by), coming back the next day to grade their assignments. Imagine my horror when I can't find ANY of the saved files.
I'm frantic. Should a guest account retain saved work? If so, how do I retrieve it.

I'm sorry to hear this, but this is how guest accounts work. They're used for temporary guest access and when the guest logs out all saved files and altered settings are deleted and reverted back to the default values.
To have an account that allows students to save files, you can create a non-administrator account and call it "students".

How do I get back a deleted file from a guest account

My son did his homework on the guest account and saved it but when logged out of guest account, all files deleted. Badly need to get it back

Sorry, it's gone. That is the whole idea behind the guest account, no breadcrumbs after you log out.

Deleting the guest account

i have a mac book pro and im having issues with my guest "user" profile. i understand that its perameters are set in stone, as in you can't change it to an admin profile, and it will delete everything when you logout. my next issue is that the guest profile appears to be in french, is there a way to change this?

What is your selected language? I've not actually tried it but I'd guess that the name of the guest account will be determined by the language chosen when it is turned on.

Why does Mail open in guest account but not my account since upgrade to Mavericks?

I've read a lot of threads but not found anything that works for me. The history is this:
I've upgraded to Mavericks 10.9.2. Since then, Mail won't open in my own user account. I only get a very brief error message:
Process:
Mail [1448]
Path:
/Applications/Mail.app/Contents/MacOS/Mail
Identifier:
com.apple.mail
Version:
7.2 (1874)
Build Info:
Mail-1874000000000000~1
Code Type:
X86-64 (Native)
Parent Process: launchd [157]
Responsible:
Mail [1448]
User ID:
I have gone to user/Library/Mail and deleted the contents of the folder Mailboxes + all the other mailboxes. No change - Mail still won't open.
If I switch user accounts to guest user, Mail opens normally (sets up email accounts etc).
Any advice would be much appreciated.

Rebooted in safe mode, repaired disc permissions, rebooted (again in safe mode) but no difference.
There was a bit more detail I could / should have added.
1) Before it crashes, Mail says it is Upgrading your Mail database.
2) I downloaded Mail update but Installer said none of the drives were compatible. (Anyway Mail works fine in Guest Account)
3) I've been through all the tips on this post https://discussions.apple.com/message/23490745#23490745http://
and
looked at Internet accounts in Preferences and none of my email accounts is checked with Mail. It asks for a password for each one but when I provide it I get the message Unable to verify account name or password. And if I try and uncheck iCloud with Mail I get the message that I need to do that from within Mail. (Obviously not possible until I can open Mail).
In Terminal tried defaults delete com.apple.mail ColorQuoterColorList but got the message that it hadn't been done.
Tried to find Envelope.x.x files as per this fix:     Final solution: Go into ~Library/Mail/V2/Mailboxes > Delete all mailboxes. Then go to ~Library/Mail/V2/Maildata and delete 3 or more "Envelope.x.x" files > Restart Mail, and enjoy your success.     but don't have a V2 folder nor Envelope.x.x files. I do have Envelope Index file and Envelope Index - journal
I don't suspect 3rd party applications because I think they are all available in the Guest Account aren't they?
Many thanks for your reply though. Any more ideas?

How can I recover files created in the guest account?

I set up a guest account for the kids to use, and my wife then used my Mac to type up a word document (for over 3 hours) and saved it at the end of the evening. The next day she returned, and it had gone! I now read that the "Guest account" deletes all files when the computer is switched off (what idiot decided to make this deletion so immediate and so permanent, I am perplexed, why not at least put them in a temporary folder?).
This document must still be there, surely, just "invisible". Please please, how can I get it back without parting with hundreds of pounds for file recovery document, it is just one file from yesterday!
(I switched from PCs to Mac's when we bought a new Vista laptop at work and couldn't find the "file" and "open" commands on a drop-down menu top-left of screen - the Mac-fans at work promised me that Macs were "so intuitive" and "so much better than a PC". They lied. Macs and PCs are both designed by geeky-types who want more and more complex systems, when all I want is a computer that does what I ask without too much clever stuff (like deleting 3 hours of work because my wife happened to be in the wrong account). I have wasted as long trying to find said file....I'm so depressed.

Paul -
I'm sorry you've lost files, but when you set up an account as Guest, there's a message that clearly states "When a guest user logs out, all information and files in the guest account's home folder are deleted". If you want an account where files are retained, you should create an Admin or Standard type.
You will need to use data recovery techniques to see if your file can be recovered. The more that you use your computer, the greater the risk that the file will be overwritten. You can contact a professional data recovery service such as DriveSavers (which will be expensive, but you can judge the value of the file) or try something like Data Rescue. The latter has a demo which you can install to determine if your file can be recovered, and then, on purchase, you can actually recover the file.
Good luck!
Matt

HT1203 1 computer w/ a guest account & my account. Want to be able to allow the guest access to video/music but not to be able to change my library what is the best way to do this?

I have a PC I use at my vacation house. Need to know if there is a way to allow the guest account to have access to my iTunes library so that they can listen to music and/or watch movies either on the PC or streaming to my AppleTV. I just don't want them to be able to delete or change what I have set up. Is this doable?

I'm not 100% sure on how this works on a PC, but I would be surprised if it was different from OS X.
There is a possibility in iTunes, by having two user sessions active :
Login to one of the "regular accounts" (one that has full access to the iTunes library"). In iTunes, allow it to share all/some of its library.
Now, keep iTunes running, and just login to the guest account. (=> the existing session is not closed !)
In iTunes, you will find under shared music the iTunes (server) running on the other account, and it will stream whatever you have allowed to share from the account above.
People using this guest account will have "read-only" access to whatever you wished to be shared, and cannot change any (meta)data.
(only minus : need to keep one session running in the background)

Delete guest account

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for