Rename short name or switch main user identity

Hi fellow mac users!
I recently have taken over a new G5 at work and want to personalize it to my new user identity. How do I change the existing 'short name' or delete the existing user and make myself the main user?
I'm trying to avoid a whole system re-install since apps and files already exist from the previous user.
Is there a technique that I can try?
thanks in advance.

If you don't need anything from the previous user's home folder, you can simply create a new admin account in SystemPreferences>Accounts and then delete the previous user's account.

Similar Messages

Change (rename) short names on existing Users

Working on the Workgroup Manager with the Apple XServer 10.4.10, and I wonder if there was a code or script to change the “short name” of the users accounts as well as having the new (rename)“short name” stay the default short name. I don’t want the “old” short name to exist on the user account. Is there a process through the terminal program I can make this change?
Thank you,

The simple answer is 'no.' But if you're really bent on it, Apple documents the process of creating a new user and integrating the old user's files. http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106824 (updated 2005 so i assume the process has not changed)
I believe this is targeted at OS X client, as a standalone. The process for an OpenDirectory account may differ.
Also, there is a utility called ChangeShortName that supposedly automates this process at www.danfrakes.com. I haven't run it and I believe it's intended for standalone OS X clients -- I have no idea what it'd do on a server. I think it's one of those "run at your own risk" things.

Changing short name - cannot enable root user??

Hi I encountered a problem trying to enable the root user in order to follow the steps to change my short name. As I follow the steps into opening Directory Utility and entering my administrator account name and password. Here's where I'm stuck at, there is no "Edit" button asking me to enable the root user. Anyone have any idea what I should do now?

ow88 wrote:
Alright I have no idea why I can't edit my own post, but anyways..
You only have about 10 minutes to edit.
did a little research, turns out it gets more complicating than that. It messes up your files, locks you out, and you lose being your own adminstrator? But since I have nothing saved, this doesn't affect me right?
In Directory Utility.app (in utilities) unlock the lock, lower left by clicking on it. Then in the menu, top left on your screen, under Edit, click Enable Root user and proceed.
You can also enable the root in a terminal by entering
sudo passwd root
and first entering your regular admin password and then selecting a root password, which should not be the same as your admin password for obvious reasons.
After that you are on your own, but I suggest first backing the OS up since there might be unexpected consequences from changing the short name. Even if you have nothing saved, you might find that the OS gets hosed for some reason and you have to do a complete reinstall. Using a TM or clone backup makes this a trivial thing to do. Otherwise, it's starting from scratch and updating everything all over again.

RENAMED SHORT NAME!!! HELP HELP HELP HELP

ok. i did a very stupid thing today..
for some reason i decided to 'apple i' my home folder..
essentially my shortname. and change it..
my powerbook didn't like that.
so, it created a new user and has 'lost data'.
simply meaning all my files are in a username 'rob'.
is this making sense?
anybody out there can help an idiot?
thanks

Yes, as you have learned this is a big oops!
Go here for Apple's advice.
Hope this helps...

User's short name greyed and can't be changed

Hi all I hope I'm in the right area for this post. Here's my problem:
When I create a user I can give them a short name or accept the default, then I save the user. However, if I go back to that user to change the short name It is greyed out and cannot be changed although I can add additional short names that can be modified. Note that I am logged in and authenticated with the Directory admin's password. It was a problem in 10.5.4 and now 10.5.5 as well.
Any advice would be appreciated.
Thank you

Hi
Firstly you don't have a problem. Its normal behaviour.
When you first create a User and key in the User's name the first short name gets created at the same time. Prior to clicking Save you can alter it then and only then. As you've already seen you can add further short names as well as editing them. To change the primary short name you delete the user account and create it again exept this time alter the primary short name to suit your needs.
Tony

Why not change the Macintosh HD to a shorter name.

I have a friend that picked up a Mac mini with OS X 10.5.8 and one for the first things
I noticed was the previous owner had changed the name of the single drive from Macintosh HD
to a shorter name
I recall reading somewhere that it is not a good idea to change the name of the primary
hard drive from Macintosh HD and I cannot remember why.
Can someone point me to a document that describes why the primary hard drive should not be renamed?

{Usually the problem occurs when a user changes the Short Name of the
computer where it affects how it is then seen in a network, and does this
improperly so the computer can't be networked until this issue is fixed.}
• Mac OS X: How to change user short name or home directory name:
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1428
• Mac OS X (10.4) Help: What's my computer's name and address?
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.4/en/mh632.html
• How do I change the Owner's Name on my Mac?
http://www.askdavetaylor.com/howto_change_owners_name_applemac.html
And if you change the Short Name (account user, etc) then KeyChain
access and other items may well be a real problem to weed out & fix.
Note the comments, after the basic info in this thread:
• Changing Names - Root - Mac Gems - MacWorld:
http://www.macworld.com/article/41481/2004/12/changeshortname.html
Or, if a user changes the name of their User Account, improperly, then the
account won't match the password and other issues will result; unless it
is fixed or the problem of changing the name incorrectly in the first place
is avoided; since there is a proper way to change the short name of the
computer (not that on the icon of the hard disk drive, btw) and a correct
way, a process, to change the user account name.
It is not advised to change the User name on an account or that of the
Computer's name where it is seen on a network. That aside, the name
change of the computer's Hard Disk Drive, at the icon on the desktop,
can be avoided by using Dock preferences to Hide the HDD so it will
not appear on the desktop at all. (Kids in schools change the HDD icon's
name frequently, when it is available and the computer not set up to
work under the Parental Controls or lower user account privilege access.)
+You can change the name of the Hard Disk Drive and that won't make+
+much difference; except in those cases where you have an Alias of the+
+original name, since it would no longer activate access to the Mac HD.+
I got over the urge to change the HDD name some time ago. However
if you partition the original hard disk drive so you have two icons on the
Desktop, you could have fair reason to change the names if you like.
(Just remember, if you make a clone, or do any complete computer drive
backup to some external device, the name change could affect the result.)
If you have an Intel-based Mac running Windows, you may have a different
matter in re-naming the hard disk drive; since Windows may require another
avenue into the means to rename that drive. And then, that may be a problem.
*You can change the Mac HD to any name.* In previous Mac OS (pre-x) versions
it was also common for users to change the hard drive icon to some other one,
and if they'd named the computer (a monster name, for example) a new image
for the icon could easily be applied through a copy-paste. In fact, that may still
be something one may be able to do, through a different agency in OS X.
And, when installing an all-new OS X, you can also change the name of the Mac HD
in Disk Utility, since the name is blank after choosing a partition scheme & reformat.
The real issue revolve around changing the computer's short name, and changing
the user's account name(s) since this is where problems begin that are harder to fix.
If the rules are followed in regard to these two, going into the situation, problems
are more readily avoided. I just don't change those things, since I'm too busy.
Good luck & happy computing!
{ edited 2x }

Botched short name change attempt has left me with no permissions! Help!

Early on, my MacBook Pro's hard drive ground to a halt and I had to fork out to get it restored. When it came back, my administrative account was no longer named "Will", but "macbookpro".
I changed the username simply, but was always bothered by the home folder being called "macbookpro". After buying a WD MyBook and backing up my "macbookpro" user folder with the WD Anywhere application, I (stupidly) decided to follow an outdated Apple guide ( http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1428 ) on how to change the short name via Terminal and root - something I now realise is no longer necessary in Leopard.
When adding the new account to replace "macbookpro" with, I couldn't, as the existing account had the username I wanted already, just not the short name. I changed what I thought was the username for what I thought was a temporary amount of time from "Will" to "William", so they had different names and I could proceed.
I followed the rest of the guide up to the point where I log on as new user. Forgetting I wasn't finished, I fired up Adium - which acted like it had never seen me before (something I don't really mind), and to this moment it has refused to sign in to MSN, but does AIM perfectly.
After being puzzled by Adium I continued the process, finding not "the keychain, which should still have the short name of the original user", but "login.keychain" - I left it.
Giving up and continuing to use my computer, I attempted to update Camino by downloading the latest version whilst simultaneously resetting all of my Application preferences to how they were before.
On dragging Camino to Applications, I was told I did not have sufficient privileges to do anything but view it. Everything except what is in my new home folder is read-only.
Sharing and Permissions shows me that macbookpro is the only account with jurisdiction over Applications - Read & Write, whereas groups "admin" and "everyone" are Read only.
For most other files, "system" and "admin" have Read & Write permissions, except in the System folder where only system has, whilst "wheel" and "everyone" can only read.
In my panic, I renamed "William" to "macbookpro" again, meaning that when I log onto my (now completely reset and devoid of preferences) original macbookpro account, I have my permissions mostly back.
You'd think I would then simply revert to using macbookpro and changing all my preferences, using the Leopard short name change - but "macbookpro" doesn't seem to be able to open ANY applications. At all. For no good reason.
Short of going through every single file on the hard drive manually and changing the permissions to allow "Will" to read and write, I can't solve this!
This puts a massive hindrance on my use of this computer, and I don't want to edit permissions on each file as I need it and then discover the only solution is to completely restart!
Please, somebody help!

If anybody ever has a similar problem, here's how I solved it as best as I could:
http://www.macchampion.com/arbysoft/Welcome.html BatChmod is a tool for batch editing file permissions.
It fixed my Applications and Library, and I can now read and write to both folders.
I dragged solely the contents of Application Support from my backup over the existing Application Support folder within my user's library, and that restored a few, but not all, of my Application Preferences.

Really changing the short name.

Is there an actual method for changing the short name? The methods I've seen involve basically making a new user, just with everything transferred from the old user.
What I really want to do is to change the short name of the admin user on my server. I've used my name for it and I want my name to be a real user, not an admin. You can't take away the admin rights or change the name.
So I installed Tiger server (and it updated to 10.4.8) and then went through the setup process. The admin user name I used was my user name (this was the mistake), now I want my name back.
I went through this with Jaguar server, and my solution then was to reformat and reinstall. I think I'm going to have to do the same again.
PowerBook 12" Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Hello,
If you just want to change the short username in WGM turn on the inspector. (Open preferences and check the "Show "All Records" tab and inspector") Once you click "ok" you will see a bullseye. Click on it select users from the drop down menu. Click on the user you wish to edit click on "RecordName" and change the short username. Once done click save.
If you need to change the short username of a user who is in the Netinfo DB such as local users. Open the Netinfo Manager, authenticate, click users, select the user you wish to edit and change the short username. You should also correct the home folder path. Save your changes and your done.
Hope this helps!
- Barrett

Right or Wrong? help: user account short name has Capital First Letter

Hello
I have the same issue as a post in the Mountain Lion discussion group. It doesn't seem to be getting an answer. So I thought I would post it here, being that I do have Snow Leopard.
The Mountain Lion post is here: https://discussions.apple.com/message/21665861#21665861
Here is MY question::
Can anyone answer this? I have this same thing. I've had this Mac since 2010, too, I think, at least two years. I don't remember being asked to use lowercase, nor actually typing in the Capital letter. I stumbled upon the realization when I was using my Macbook and my user name whille different does use all lowercase. The Macbook is newer.
I've been running this Mac with the first letter Capital for the short name with no problems that I know of. I do have Time Machine backups that I don't really want to lose access to.
What are the benefits and pitfalls of using the method etresoft explains to change it to all lowercase?? Should I do it just to do it and be in line with Apple's guidelines or should I leave well enough alone?? Which way will cause me MORE problems? Running with the Capital letter or going through the process of changing it to lowercase??
What kind of problems will I run into if I change it or don't change it???
Where "oldshortname" is your old user name and "newshortname" is the user name you want to change it to. Keep in mind that both oldshortname and newshortname must be all lowercase, with no spaces, and only contain letters or numbers.
And, Padgreen has an excellent point -- how do we do this change process if our Old Shortname is Shortname?? How can we type "shortname" for the "oldshortname" if our shortname is not all lowercase??
etresoft -- are you around??
Or someone else? Thanks!!
(the only thing I can even think of as a problem is when I copy files/folders over to my Macbook - it sometimes makes "nobody" the owner of the file/folder and I find out when I try to edit or move the file. I can usually just change the owner and everything is fine. I don't know if this is related or not.)

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1428 states:
Select the Home folder with the short name you want to change, and rename it just like you would rename any folder. Keep in mind that the shortname must be all lowercase, with no spaces, and only contain letters.

Short Name for same user results in different service authorization

New to Mac Server. Not new to Unix, command line, or sys admin.
I have a Mini Server, with two users; me and my wife.
Both Accounts have two short names each: Initals+Lastname, and First Name only
With iChat on the server, my account can login using both short names.
Her account can only login to iChat using the Initals+Lastname, not First Name.
Actually her account can log in to iChat using any variation of short names (I've added extra ones), but not the short name of just her first name.
Both users have identical permissions everywhere I can see, both are authorized for iChat.
The short name works if I remove permissions on iChat (I don't want to do this)
Both users are OD users, not local. I only have an admin account for local access.
Here is a snippet of the Jabber log:
jabberd/c2s[40845]: [11] SASL authentication succeeded: mechanism=DIGEST-MD5; authzid=[email protected], TLS negotiated
jabberd/c2s[40845]: odauth_check_servicemembership: checking user "kaarinas" access for service "chat"
jabberd/c2s[40845]: odauth_check_servicemembership: mbrcheck_servicemembership returned 0
jabberd/c2s[40845]: odauth_check_servicemembership: user "kaarinas" is authorized to access service "chat"
jabberd/c2s[40845]: [11] SASL authentication succeeded: mechanism=DIGEST-MD5; authzid=[email protected], TLS negotiated
jabberd/c2s[40845]: odauth_check_servicemembership: checking user "kaarina" access for service "chat"
jabberd/c2s[40845]: odauth_check_servicemembership: mbrcheck_servicemembership returned 0
jabberd/c2s[40845]: odauth_check_servicemembership: user "kaarina" is not authorized to access service "chat"
I'm stumped as to why one short name would work, the other not. Looking for hints on how to hunt down and solve the problem.

This isn't working for me. There was never a local "intern2" account, but I deleted the one in the ldap anyway, made and removed the local intern2 account. I then remade the intern2 account in the ldap directory(which increased the uid), rebooted the server, and the error remains the same as what you report.
Jun 8 13:36:00 server jabberd/c2s[212]: od_auth_check_service_membership: user "intern2" is not authorized to access service "chat"
There are 12 other accounts connected just fine. The issue is with this new intern account only.
Server 10.6.6.

If I reinstall Snow Leopard to replace "user" with my own short name in accounts, will I wipe out all upgrades, mail settings, etc. that I have already set?

After buying a second-hand laptop running Snow Leopard, I made mistake of upgrading software, creating mail accounts, Safari preferences, etc., before noticing that the account name was "user". I want to replace this Admin account with my own short name, but can't seem to do it without completely reinstalling Snow Leopard. If I do this, will I lose everything I have done already? Thanks in advance,
DRJ

Kurt,
I have a question about that link....it said to change the name of the folder in the way you would change any folder....
There is where i am having the problem....I just got a mac and i am having windows withdraw...b/c i don't know how to do jack.......
When i have my finder window open and look under places i see the house icon with the (i assume) user's short name.....this will not let me rename this......Is there a reason why???
Thanks..
Daniel

Best Practice: changing a user's short name?

I administer the OS X Servers and user accounts at my school, where typically a few teachers will come back from the summer having gotten married and changed their names.
We use a standard for usernames of first letter of first name and last name, where Ann Smith is 'asmith' - when she goes and gets married and wants to be 'ajones' at the beginning of this year, what is the best way to go about this change?
Users have network homes, and IMAP email is on a separate server. Here is what I was thinking:
For the user's files, make a new user with their new username, 'ditto' the contents of the old username's home folder to the new username, and chown/chmod the new folder's contents to match the correct permissions.
For the user's mail, use SirAdmin to add ACL's to the old username's mail folders to be able to read them as the new username, have the new username set up their mail and copy the contents of the old username's mail to their new IMAP folder(s).
Does this make sense or is this far too complicated?
Do I just tell these users to log in using their old name and burn their essentials to a DVD and just worry about helping them with their emails?
Any and all suggestions would be appreciated -- thanks
BC

Hi Blair
These look like good methods to me and should work. You could consider creating a second short name - something suitable like their first name instead? Enable Mobile Account (PHD) for the affected users and log in using that short name. Their account should now be created locally as well.
If you have only a handful you could use a spare machine to do it with yourself? More on this later.
If you these users have IMAP accounts you could enable POP for them as well. As you/they log in to download from the server their current home folder their mail should be downloaded also.
What you have after that is effectively a back up of their home folders and mail kept locally on a client machine or a designated machine you decided to use. Delete their account, create the new long and short names, create the additional short name (exactly as it was before), log in with those details and upload the locally stored information back to the server. There should be no need to worry about permissions etc.
What you could do is send an email to the affected users outlining the steps they need to take to achieve what you want. Minimal effort with maximum gain.
When you are happy kill the mobile account option as well as deleting the additional short name. Send another mail advising they use the first short name for logging in. There'll be a little tidying up to do in deleting the locally created home folders but you can do this at your leisure using VNC.
I would have in place one of the other methods as well - just in case.
Tony

Our daughter just got an iPad Mini and I set it up for her, but I originally set it up under my apple id in order to create an apple id for her. Is there any way for me to switch it to her account as the main user?

Our daughter just got an iPad mini and I originally set it up under my Apple ID in order to create an Apple ID for her (she's under 13 so I set up iCloud family)... is there any way to switch the main user to her so that she can use iMessage and such under her own account? When she uses iMessage it's my account. I can't find a solution anywhere. Thank you!!

Hi Maudluna,
I understand you would like to sign out your Apple ID from an iPad. You can do this easily by following the steps in the article below. I have also linked to an article about Family Sharing which can help you create and manage multiple accounts:
iOS: Sign in with a different Apple ID in the iTunes Store, App Store, and iBooks Store - Apple Support
Start or join a family group using Family Sharing - Apple Support
Family Sharing makes it easy for up to six people in your family to share each other’s iTunes, iBooks, and App Store purchases without sharing accounts. Pay for family purchases with the same credit card and approve kids’ spending right from a parent’s device. And share photos, a family calendar, and more to help keep everyone connected.
Thank you for contributing to Apple Support Communities.
Take care,
Bobby_D

Yosemite install has messed up my home folder after fixing user short name.

I just installed Yosemite 10.10.2 onto a new Mac Pro, replacing 10.9.5. After the installation completed, I allow my iCloud settings the set things up for Mail and my other general account settings. The only issue is that when I changed my short name from timjones to tjones, auto correct changed it to tones (as it has done in this post 2 times). Once I recognized this, I used the normal method for modifying a user account by logging in under another admin account, using ditto to copy the '/Users/tones' folder to '/Users/tjones', selecting the Tim Jones account in Users and Groups and using the Advanced Options to reset the short name to tjones. I then reassigned the home folder to /Users/tjones.
All seemed to go well and when I logged back in as tjones. However, I could no longer set up my preferences for apps nor could I access my mail. I then clicked on the 'tjones' home folder in Finder and was greeted with a dialog that said 'Preparing to duplicate items to "Users"'. It then spun for around 2 minutes and prompted me for my password. I entered it and the dialog changed to 'Duplicating 0 items to "Users"' and it's now been spinning for around 15 minutes.
What is this and am I back at square one and reinstalling (I have good backups...)?

The "Duplication" finished finally and my home folder has now disappeared from the /Users folder in Finder. If I check in a Terminal, there are now 2 folders - 'tjones' which is set to tjones:wheel and 'tjones copy' which is set to tjones:admin. As mentioned, neither is visible in Finder.

How to change users short name in 10.7 Server version? Command line possible?

I just migrated from Snow Leo 10.6 Server to Lion 10.7 server. All seems ok except for one user (me!). It seems my short name is different. It was Goerge Smith but now it is just George.   And All users can login and get mail etc, but not me.
I try to reset password using Updated Workgroup utiliity and new Server App, but the app refuses to allow rest of password or chnage of short user name.
All other users seem ok and their names, atributes, passwords can be easily reset.   So both Open Directoty and NDS ( all the normal cast of troublemakes) do not seem to be at issue.
Clearly something odd or unexpected happened in migration of Open Directory users and attributes.
How can I change my User Shortname Back to the correct one? Or Any ideas why my Password is locked, and cannot be reset?
I have rebooted sveral times, all other functions seem normal and working? Mystified!!   Help?

Someone in the Lion Server Forum might know?
Regards,
Colin R.

Rename short name or switch main user identity

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