Mac Basics: User Accounts

Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Today let me show you how to use User Accounts on your Mac.

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So if more than one person is using your Mac each person should have their own User Account. In addition, even if it's just you using your Mac there maybe some reasons why you may want to have a second user account as well. To create a User Account go to System Preferences. Then Users & Groups. Here on the left you'll see a list of all of the current User Accounts. At the top you should see Current User, and that's the account you're logged into now. Then you'll see Other Users under that. You may need to expand this list. To change anything here you need to Unlock by entering your password. Now you can change anything for anyone of these accounts. You can also Add a new account with the Plus button here. When you add a new account you get to choose between Administrator or Standard.

Now the main different between Administrator and Standard is that an Administrator Account can create and remove other user accounts, also reset their passwords and make changes to the other accounts. A Standard account can only log into its own account. Both Administrator and Standard accounts can add applications and do most of the things you normally do on a Mac. But it's a good idea to make every responsible adult who uses your Mac an Administrator so if something happens to one person another person is able to take control of the Mac entirely. However you may want to use a Standard account for anybody else, perhaps a child that you want to setup parental controls and things for. This stops them from being able to override the main system settings. 

Now when you create an account you enter your full name and then you want to create an account name. You want to keep that short and simple. It's going to be the name of the folder for your user account. It's nearly impossible to change. So you just want to keep it really simple. Maybe just use your first name unless you have somebody else in the household that has the same first name. Then you enter a password and verify the password. You can also provide a Hint as well. But you should definitely write this password down somewhere and store it in a safe place. It's not a password you want to forget. 

The thing about User Accounts is that under Users every user account gets its own Home Folder. So there's the current one I'm using. But here's another one for another user account. If you had four user accounts you would see four different things listed here. So every user has their own personal storage space for files, videos, pictures, all of that. When somebody is logged in their account they can access their files and make changes to their files but they can't access or make changes to your files. In addition settings for apps and in System Preferences are specific to the user account. So, for instance, in Safari for each user account there's going to be a separate history, a separate set of Bookmarks, a separate set of Preferences for exactly how things are setup. Your browser Homepage doesn't need to be the same as the browser Homepage for your spouse or for your sibling. Even things like desktop backgrounds, Screen Savers and all sorts of customizations will be specific to the user account. 

Also, everybody should have their own Apple ID and each User Account can be logged into a separate Apple ID. So when you log into your User Account you have access to all of your stuff in iCloud. When somebody else logs into their User Account they're logged into their Apple ID and they have access to their stuff in iCloud. So it's like having several different Macs but the same computer. You login in your account and everything is setup your way. It's your desktop background. It's your Bookmarks. It's your settings. It's your email account. It's your Apple ID. Then when somebody else is logged in with their account they have all of their own things and don't have access to yours. 

Now here you could see that's the current user and I have another user here. Since both are Admins I can reset the password of the other person which is handy. You also have an option down here as to whether or not you can get access to a User Account if you forgot the password but you know your Apple ID password. Of course that Apple ID is assigned to that account. Now you can also go down to Login Items. This has a lot of useful settings. First you've got Automatic Login which should always be turned Off for everybody. You should have to enter your password else your computer is not secured. No matter where your computer is located, how secure it is, you want to make sure that Automatic Login is Off. You have to enter a password. Otherwise it's like leaving the front door of your house wide open. 

Also on this screen you've got the very important Show fast user switching. Turn that On. Then you get this little menu up here. You can set it to Icon, Full Name, or Account Name. When you click here you can use Fast User Switching. Fast User Switching is a great feature if you have multiple User Accounts because what it allows you to do is switch to another account without logging out of the first one. Person A could be logged in, could be in the middle of writing a document. They've got a Pages window open. They've got Safari open. They're right in the middle of working. The other person could sit down, switch User Accounts, check their email, and then the first person can come back, switch back, and everything is just as they left it. 

Another option to consider is Guest User. That's handy if a visitor comes over and wants to use your Mac. They can then go from the Login screen to login as a Guest user. This creates a brand new account on the fly. They can do what they want. They can check their email. They can surf the web. They can save files, edit things. But they only have access to this special user account that's there temporarily. They don't have access to your stuff. Then when they log out when they're done it deletes that account completely. It erases it like it was never there. Now the problem with Guest User Accounts is if you're using a Fire Vault then guest users really aren't allowed. So instead, if you're using Fire Vault, which you should if you have a portable Mac that leaves your house or office, then what you would want to do is if a guest really wanted to use your Mac, say they really had no other option except to use your computer, is that you would go in here and just quickly create a Standard account for them. Allow them to use that Standard account and once they're done then you can remove that account. You should never let another person, no matter how much you trust them, use your account. It's not a matter of trust you see. It could be just a simple mistake that they make that deletes files, that changes some sort of important setting or preference for you. Even things like your Browser history or websites that you're automatically logged into or can easily access using passwords stored in Safari, you don't want anybody to access no matter how much you trust them.  

Now besides having multiple people using the same Mac another reason to have a separate account is if you're in a situation like I am where I create a demo account to be able to create tutorials for you but you don't have to see all of my stuff. You can see everything setup in basically a typical default account. Other people may want to use it as a demo account to test things out. Maybe even an account to use when making presentations especially if the presentations involve showing different parts of macOS. Also keep in mind that if another family member primarily uses an iPhone or an iPad and they don't really use the Mac you may still want to give them a user account on your Mac so they can get Mac specific things done once in awhile whenever they need to. They can access all of the same information they have stored in iCloud on those other devices when they log into the account on your Mac. While they're not logged in it's not really getting in your way at all. 

So the bottomline is that every person that uses your Mac should have their own user account and be logged into their own Apple ID on that user account. A handy thing to know is that if you buy an app with your user account it's available to other users on that Mac as well. So you don't have to purchase the app twice. But in addition to that if you use Apple's Family Sharing between your Apple ID's you could share other things like music, movies, subscriptions and so on.