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How Do I Change the Home Name Of My MacBook Pro?

When my MBP computer was new I connected it to an old computer and transferred all the files and photos. It also grabbed the home name of the other computer and I have never been able to figure out how to change it to what I want. If I can change it what will in do to all the files that have that name in the file path? Will they still be accessible?

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Christol_J

Comments: 4 Responses to “How Do I Change the Home Name Of My MacBook Pro?”

    6 years ago

    Do you mean change the name of your user account and Home folder? If so, Apple has instructions for that: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201548.

    Changing the name of your Home folder would change the path of everything in it, of course. But if done right they certainly won't be inaccessible. You should be able to use everything just as before, just with a new user account short name and Home folder name. It is possible that poorly-written third-party software may have some trouble figuring out the change, and you may have to work a bit to get things back to 100%, but I doubt it.

    Christol James
    6 years ago

    Thanks Gary,
    When I go through the process to change the home directory from /Users/xxxxx to /Users/yyyyyy
    I get this error message.

    Are you sure you want to change the path to the home folder of user “xxxxx” to “/Users/yyyyyyy?”
    If this path doesn’t match the actual location of the user’s home folder, the user will not be able to log in to this computer.
    Too scary,
    Christol

    6 years ago

    Christol: It IS scary. You are right. Another method is to simply create a new user account. Set it up the way you want. Then copy your files (Documents, Desktop, Pictures, Movies, Music) from one account to the other. At least that process leaves the old account intact, which is less scary. Then stop logging into that old account. Then delete the old account (or just the files you copied, better still) later on once everything has been proven to work OK. Either way, it is a pain.

    Christol James
    6 years ago

    Thanks Gary,
    Much appreciate your time and comments.
    Christol

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