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.

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New to the Apple and I want to set up a user account that will not delete the guest users files and allow and preserve their personal settings after log out. Is this possible?

New to the Apple and I want to set up a user account that will not delete the guest users files and allow and preserve their personal settings after log out. Is this possible?

The built-in guest user account will not do this. Simply create a new standard account and call it "Guest" or "Guest Users" or whatever you like.
Go to System Preferences > Users& Groups, click "+" to make a new account.

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

Is there any way to recover files from the guest account on a Mac, after the machine has been logged out?

I had uploaded some photos onto iPhoto on the guest account for my visitors, intending to burn them on departure.
I updated my Mac with a system software update, which required reboot so I of course types in the admin username/password to do so.
I received no warning message "caution: all temporary files in guest account will be deleted if you logout" as if you logout directly from the guest account, so I had forgotten about the guest account wipe.
Just today I switched to the guest user, and was dismayed to find the files gone.
Surely there must be some way to recover these files? Can anyone help?!
Thanks
Alan

They possibly still exist on the hard drive if you haven't overwritten that space already.
Your only hope is to try a file recovery program like Data Rescue 3 or some sort like that.
(note: the product linked to is an example of the suggested kind of software that may help you; it is not in any way my recommendation or endorsement of the product. I haven't used this product and can't comment on its effectiveness).

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?

Why is the guest account set up so strangely?

I mean, I give a guest in my house the guest account, and it starts up with address book, time machine, garageband etc all in the toolbar. I mean, why?

Actually, you can change this with a little bit of low-level tinkering, if you feel comfortable doing so. This is adapted from a hint at macosxhints.com to work on 10.6. Make sure you follow the instructions carefully since you're changing the system's defaults.
1. Make sure the guest account is enabled in System Preferences.
2. Download and install the latest <a href-"http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1071">Server Admin Tools (link goes to 10.6.4 version). Even though you're not running OS X Server, these tools will give you a nice interface to edit the account settings for the guest account.
3. In the Applications/Server folder, launch Workgroup Manager. At the login prompt, enter "127.0.0.1" for the server address, and your OS X admin name and password.
4. In Workgroup Manager, in the View menu, click Show System Records. Now in the main window, if you click Accounts, you should see a long list of "reserved" system accounts. Scroll down and click on "Guest account" to highlight it. Click "Preferences" in the top tab.
5. You'll see a warning that this is a local change only. Click OK.
6. On the right, click Dock, then, next to Manage, click Always. The list of applications underneath will activate, allowing you to select, delete, or add any apps you want to appear in the guest dock. Once you've finished, untick "Merge with user's dock" and click Apply Now.
7. You can now quit Workgroup Manager. Guest login will now have the dock you've customised, and any new standard/admin accounts will retain the normal default dock.
I haven't yet found a way to change the default desktop image for Guest, but I'm sure there's a way...
Good luck!
Matt

How do I customize the Guest Account in Lion

There is a discussion thread on how to customize the dock for the Guest account in Leopard <https://discussions.apple.com/message/6511435#6511435> but I do not think it will work in Lion.
I would like to customize the desktop and dock for the Guest account. I want a true Guest Account that will erase files when they log out.

I'd like to go back to the original question. I don't see an answer here yet.
We just set up a new iMac in the front office and need the "Guest" account for those who float through the office. Unfortunately, the way it currently works, each time they open Microsoft Word they are asked to register since the user files are deleted.
I would also like to update the dock removing things they won't use like "Mail" and adding Pages and other applications they will use.
Other constant customizations would be great (setting system preferences like printer, custom desktop, Safari Home Page, etc.) but at least not having them asked to register applications each time would be good.
The original poster, Richard, added a link to how to do it in Snow Leopard, but it doesn't work in Lion.
Anyone figure out how to do this in LION yet?
Thanks.

Changing the Guest Account Picture

Someone using a guest account was playing with Photobooth and changed the Account Picture for the Guest Account in Leopard. I don't know how to change it back to the default picture, any ideas?

I'm still not caught up with the "DirectoryServices" form of user records that are now the default in "Leopard", but there are two properties that might be related to the user picture in the "login window". One is 'Picture' and the other is 'JPEGPhoto', of which the latter isn't present in every user record so I would suspect that one.
While logged in to an "admin" account, try launching "/Applications" > "Utilities" > "Terminal.app" and entering this command:<pre>
sudo /usr/bin/dscl . -delete /users/Guest JPEGPhoto</pre>
Be careful entering the command since a space in the wrong place could delete the entire "Guest" account, or even wipe out all user records. Enter the "admin" user's password at the prompt (for security reasons, the keystrokes won't appear in the window - just press the "return" key when done).

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".

We use our Iphones with the icloud to set up scheduling of jobs. Multiple phones share the same icloud for this purpose. We recently had a change in leadership. How do I completely delete the icloud account? Or do I just create a new one/forget old 1

Multiple phones share one Icloud account. We use it to schedule jobs and crew leaders read the cloud to get the information of the job that needs to be done. However, we recently had a change of leadership and we think this person might have logged into or put our cloud on his phone to sabotage our business. I changed the password but that didn't fix the situation. I could put a job on the cloud with an old phone that was logged in with the old password and everyone with the new password would still see the job. I have since created a whole new cloud account which seems to have eliminated the "future" issue of sabotage however I would like to completely eliminate that old account...any advise?

Everyone needs to go to Settings (or System Preferences)>iCloud and click 'Delete account' or 'Sign out' as applicable (it's the same thing). Then they can sign into the new account you have created and proceed from there. You can't actually delete the old account from the server but you can just ignore it.

How do I delete and create a new iCloud account on my iPhone, when I cannot delete the old account off my phone!

I have given my 4s to my wife, she has an iCloud account which uses her work address, she has now left the company and we want to start a new iCloud account, trouble is we cannot delete the old account, we have created a new iCloud account but the iPhone won't let us log into it as it only recognises the old version, we can't access her email anymore to reset the account. Have tried all online help. We restored the phone through iTunes

Ah thanks Razmee however there is NO option to delete the iCloud account in settings!

Cannot send or receive yahoo mail or gmail from iPhone . installed ios 6 recently. tried rebooting the phone and deleting the email account and adding again but nothing works ! can someone suggest a solution?

cannot send or receive yahoo mail or gmail from iPhone . installed ios 6 recently. tried rebooting the phone and deleting the email account and adding again but nothing works ! can someone suggest a solution?

Not sure about yahoo, but for gmail, I done the following:
Set up using Exchange on iPhone, it'll keep prompting for password. On PC use captcha option, log in to gmail account from PC after completingg captcha option, enter password on iPhone.
See how that goes for gmail, let us know.
Hopefully someone will have fix for yahoo.

On my iPad I have a working icloud that I have complete access to, but on my iPhone it keeps asking me for the password for it, but I do not know it! And the email that I used is not activated anymore! How do I delete the icloud account on my phone?

On my iPad I have a working icloud that I have complete access to, but on my iPhone it keeps asking me for the password for it, but I do not know it! And the email that I used is not activated anymore! How do I delete the icloud account on my phone?

Hi Aurion23,
If you intend to keep using iCloud on your iPad, your best course of action would be to update your Apple ID/iCloud information so that you have a known password and it is associated with an active email address. You may find the following articles helpful:
iCloud: Change your iCloud password
http://support.apple.com/kb/ph2617
Apple ID: Changing your Apple ID
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht5621
Regards,
- Brenden

Me and my sister were using the same apple id but know i'm using a new one and i want to change also the icloud account but i'm afraid if i deleted the icloud account it would be also deleted from her iphone, so can i delete it ?

me and my sister were using the same apple id but know i'm using a new one and i want to change also the icloud account but i'm afraid if i deleted the icloud account it would be also deleted from her iphone, so can i delete it ?

You can delete it.

Deleting the guest account

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