Mac OS X Pocket Reference

Users and Logging In

The ability to have multiple users on the same system was first introduced with Mac OS 9, but it wasn’t mandatory as it is with Mac OS X.

Tips for Users

Here are some helpful hints to assist you in managing your user account:

Configuring my login?

System Preferences → Login

Change my login password?

System Preferences → Users → username → Edit User → Password panel

Use the passwd command in the Terminal.

Note

When choosing a password, you should avoid using dictionary words (i.e., common, everyday words found in the dictionary) or something that could be easily guessed. To improve your security, we recommend that you choose an alpha-numeric password. Remember, passwords are case-sensitive, so you can mix upper- and lowercase letters with your password as well.

Add another user to the system?

System Preferences → Users → New User (requires administrator privileges)

Note

Unix administrators might be tempted to use the useradd , userdel, and usermod commands to add, remove, and modify a user, respectively, from the Terminal. The only problem is, you can’t—those commands don’t exist on Mac OS X.

Remove a user from the system?

System Preferences → Users → username → Delete User (requires administrator privileges). After a user has been deleted, that user’s directories (and everything within) becomes the property of the root user; only root can delete these directories from the system.

Note

When you’re logged in, you can’t remove yourself from the system. If you ...