deleting user account

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I have two questions regarding deleting a user account.

I am currently deleting a user account and it is taking a long time. I chose to delete the files. I started yesterday morning and it is still deleting.  How long should this take?

My second question:  when I deleted the account I  changed my user account to an administrator account.  (I checked Allow user to administer the computer on my user account.)  I should have used my admin account.  I want to demote my user account from admin to user.  Will I be able to do this after the deletion is complete?  And if so how?

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You need to have at least ONE Administrator on the computer.
If you want to use a Standard account you should create a second account and use that for your main account.
But you should leave the Admin account as well.

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Myst

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Hi PKCano – I may have not expressed the problem correctly.  I now have two admin accounts and no Standard user account. I inadvertendly converterd my Standard account to an admin.

Let me ask you another question:  for safety reasons it was recommended not to use an admin account for everyday computing.  However, I have nothing in Documents and nothing in Downloads. I use the computer only for email and surfing the web. I do not keep old emails on the computer. In this case, do I need to have a Standard account for everyday use or is it safe for me to use the Standard account that is now converted to an Admin account for everyday use.

Also, do you have any idea how long the deletion of a user account and the home folder should take?

 

 

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It is safer to use a Standard account for everyday use.

Hesh wrote:

I now have two admin accounts and no Standard user account. I inadvertendly converterd my Standard account to an admin.

You can re-convert that admin account back to a Standard account. Use the other Admin account to do so. OR If you would rather have the converted Admin as the only Admin, use it to convert your original Admin to a Standard account.

In other words, use the account you want to be Admin to convert the other account to Standard. (The one that has your data probably should be the Standard account since that is the one you use most of the time.)

Deletion of an account will depend on how much data you have on the account to delete, whether you have an HDD or SSD, what CPU you have, whether you are using Time Machine or other syncing backup that has to keep up with the changes, etc, etc. No way to predict.

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Thanks so much PKCano for your help.  Right now I cannot do anything with the account that I “inadvertently converted from standard to admin” since it is being used to delete the user account that is taking forever.

I have copied your instructions on converting the now admin account back to a standard account.

Just to be clear with all of these accounts: I have two accounts:  I have an Admin account that was only used as an Admin — never even opened it up — just used it when I needed to put in Admin credentials.  This was my original Admin account (one and only).

My other account is a Standard account that I use for all of my computing.  I inadvertently used this account to delete the family members account and in order to do so had to check the box Allow user to administer the computer.

I should have used my Admin account to delete the family members account and then would have left my Standard account in tact.

If I understand you correctly,  after the whole process of deleting the family member’s account is accomplished, I can then go into my original Admin account that was only used as Admin and use it to convert the account that I “inadvertentdly converted to Admin” back to a Standard account?  Because I read somewhere that you cannot convert your main account from admin back to standard.  Is this true?

I hope I am being more clear!

 

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It is better to leave the original account as Admin because that account is the one Apple recognizes as “owner” of the device. The best choice is to convert the other account back to a Standard account.

Remember also, it an account uses iDrive, deleting the account also affects whatever is on the Apple Servers associated with that account.

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I’m getting confused.  Is this what you are recommending:

1. log into my original admin account that was always Admin and never used for anything but logging in as Admin.

2.  Then Convert the account that was originally Standard that  I inadvertently made into an Admin back to Standard.

This is my choice since the account in #2 has all of my computing history etc.  I was afraid that the account that Apple recognizes as the “owner of the device” was #2 and that I would not be able to convert it back to Standard.  But if I understand you correctly, you are saying that the account that Apple recognizes as the Owner is #1 (the original Admin) even though it was not used for general computing.

None of my accounts uses I Drive.

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Log in as the original Admin. Allow it to to administer the computer. (System Preferences->Users & Groups – unlock, highlight, check box, highlight other user, uncheck if necessary.

Use original Admin to change the other account to Standard.

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Thanks so much PKCano for sticking with me and helping me to understand.  I will follow your directions as soon as the computer is finished with deleting the user account — I hope I live long enough to see that happen!  🙂

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It took almost three days for the user account to get deleted.

However, I was not able to make the account that was inadvertently changed to Admin back to Standard.  My research tells me that this cannot be done if the original standard account was the main account (which it was) when I set up the computer.  Also, it is a 501 Account which supposedly cannot be deleted or changed.

Since I could not change it back to a User account or even delete it I made a new User account.  That means I have two Admin accounts and one new User account.

I still would really like to be able to demote the account that was inadvertently changed from Standard to Admin (or at least to be able to completely delete it).  Any ideas?

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Here are some ideas/suggestions:

The main account when you set up the computer should remain the active Admin account. That is the one that used to be the Standard account you were using for everyday and has all your data? IF SO….

The other admin account (not the main one): Look in Users & Groups and see if you can deactivate it (turn it off) like the Guest account.

Use the active Admin account to copy/paste your data files to the new Standard account. DO NOT move them (drag and drop). An easier way might be to copy them an external HDD/USB (then you will have an easily accessable backup), then copy to the Standard account. Access to the programs in the Applications folder should be the same for both accounts, but you may have to set the Preferences for the new Standard account in both System Settings and the Applications.
Log in as the new Standard account, change your System & view settings/preferences like you want and verify you can access your data. Once everything is good there, you should be able to remove your data from the Admin account if you want to (if you made a backup).

Things to watch out for:
If you are backing up settings/keychain/data/etc to iDrive or if you are using iDrive to store data, be sure you don’t exceed your limit.
If you are using Time Machine or a backup service (like BackBlaze, etc), be sure you adjust what you want to backup and what you don’t for all accounts.

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Thanks PKCano for sticking with me!

The main account when you set up the computer should remain the active Admin account. That is the one that used to be the Standard account you were using for everyday and has all your data? IF SO….  — Yes, this is correct.  Let’s call this the HESH ACCOUNT ADMIN.

The other admin account (not the main one): Look in Users & Groups and see if you can deactivate it (turn it off) like the Guest account. ––Let’s call this the ORIGINAL ADMIN.

I tried logging in with the ORIGINAL ADMIN and also the HESH ACCOUNT and with both I can only add an account, cannot use the delete.  All accounts other than the account that I log in on are grayed out. There is no turn off option there.

Regarding your concern with adding the files from the HESH ACCOUNT to the new Standard Account:  I have no files to add.  I only keep my picture file on the computer and I already migrated the few pictures to the new Standard Account.  I do not have any Documents or Downloads on the computer.  Even my emails are deleted after reading or  if of value copied and filed away.

I made a backup of the new Standard account on Time Machine.

I don’t understand why all accounts seem to be locked on Users and Groups.

My IMac is getting on in years — it’s a 2017.  When I purchase a new one I will start fresh with a new install since I don’t really have files to import.  Then I’ll finally be able to have the Admin and Standard set up as I wish.

Please advise if the above makes sense — your thoughts!

Oh — one more question:  On the HESH ACCOUNT ADMIN. — I want to make this account have nothing on it and just use it as Admin.  It now receives my emails on it.  Even though I delete the emails after reading them — is there some way I can prevent them from going to this account without stopping them from going to the new Standard account?  (Please excuse my ignorance — I’m not completely computer literate!)

 

 

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Please disregard the request to stop the emails from coming to HESH ACCOUNT ADMIN.  I figured out that I had them coming from the Web (I had set it up on the Brave Browser so that the emails showed up on the Dock).  I fixed it so that this does not occur.

I am making HESH ACCOUNT ADMIN a dummy account with basically nothing on it (just as the ORIGINAL ADMIN was a dummy account just for log in as Admin. ).  You had mentioned that it is not a bad idea to have two Admin accounts so that is where I am now.

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Since I cannot delete or demote the account to a Standard account, if I go to Finder and delete every one of the folders there would that accomplish deleting the account?  Or at least if it was not deleted there would be no info there and I could still use it just for Admin purposes?

Am I correct that this would not have any adverse effect on my other two accounts?

 

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I would not delete the default folders (Documents, Downloads, etc)
The Applications folder is common to all of the accounts. Leave it alone.
Also leave the Library folder (if you can see it, it is normally hidden)
You can delete all the data under the default folders (Desktop, Documents, Downloads)
Open the Pictures, Music, and Movie folders and delete any actual pics and music that you have added. If there are some “library” files and folders there that are default – leave them.

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Thanks PKCano.  I am taking your advice.

One more question:   When I purchase my new Mac if I manually add everything (don’t use Time Machine or anything else) then I can manually add only the two accounts that I want to keep.  In other words, since I basically leave nothing on the computer I can do a completely new install when I get the new Imac with the two accounts that I want to keep.

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Sure. On a new computer you can add whatever accounts you want (and not add what you don’t want).

There is something to be aware of. If your Time Machine is for Intel Macs, I don’t believe it will be compatible with an Apple Silicon Mac. I no longer use Time Machine. But I think I ran into this when I bought my first M1 MacMini in 2020 after having a number of Intel Macs of one sort or another from 2011 on.

I no longer use Time Machine. I sync my data between my computers (Mac and Windows) using SugarSync. I copy all my VMs (Windows 8.1/10/11 Parallels VMs) to an external HDD periodically and figure since all the rest is synced I’ll just reinstall the OS + Programs,  restore the VMs, and resync the data if something goes wrong.

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That is very interesting info.  Do I understand you correctly that Time Machine does not work on the new Apple Silicon Macs?

Or were you saying that Time Machine cannot be usesd to transfer info from an Intel machine to a Silicon Machine?

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Time Machine CAN be used on the Apple Silicon Macs.
BUT, as I recall, the formatting is different so the hardware has to be reformatted (which will affect what is on it now). I do not know the particulars, as that is why I stopped using Time Machine because I have a combination of Intel and Apple Silicon Macs.

On the Apple website, search for the info about Time Machine using Intel and Apple Silicon. There is probably other info on the Apple-related websites.

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I can’t believe it!  Last night I shut down the computer.  This morning I decided to once again visit Users and Groups.  All accounts were showing in dark black–none were grayed out.  I simply checked the box to demote the original account back to Standard!

 

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PKCano

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