How to change Mac username and home folder name

There are several places on your Mac where your name – or any other name – may appear: Account Name and Home Folder. The name will appear based on the full name you provided when you (or administrator) first set up the account.

But what if you want to change your username as it appears in these locations? It is possible that you are married and now have a new name (or you have just divorced). They may have mistyped your name when they set up your Mac. Maybe your initials and title spelling are a bit offensive, or it’s time to change what was once a fun username for something more formal. Your current short name may not be too short and it may be difficult to type every time you are asked for your username. You probably have two or more Macs and you want to use the same short username for all of them. Or you may have inherited a Mac and would prefer to rename an existing account instead of creating a new one.

Fortunately, since the launch of Mac OS X Leopard in 2007, Apple has made it reasonably easy to change the short username and home folder name from among the system preferences. Before Leopard, changing your short username was a complicated, risky process.

Although there are still some limitations:

• Short names and home folder names must match – so if you’re hoping to give your home directory a comedy name, want the short name as something more formal, out of luck.
• Despite what we’ve said, this is a less risky approach, a change that could result in data loss if you do something wrong. So make sure you back up first!
• You cannot change the name of an account while logging in to the account you are changing. So to do this you need to log in to a different (admin) account – you may need to create it first.

If you want to create a new administrator account, follow these steps:

1. Open System Preferences> Users and Groups.
2. Click the lock icon and enter your password.
3. Click on the + sign.
4. Change the new account to administrator.
5. Enter an account name and password.
6. Click Create User.

If you have forgotten your password, read: How to recover a forgotten Mac password.

Alternatively you can make an existing account an administrator.

1. Open Users and groups Choice blade.
2. Click the lock icon in the lower-left corner and authenticate yourself
3. Select the account from the list on the left.
4. Check the “Allow user to operate this computer” box.
5. macOS notes that you need to restart your Mac to make it work; Do it.

How to change mac username

Now that you’ve set up this Alternative Administrator account, it’s easy to change the username for your account. But you will see a pretty strict warning that changing settings can damage the account and prevent you from logging in, so be careful!

The first step is to log out of your account and into this new admin account:

1. Click on the Apple logo and select Log Out [your name]
2. Then enter the new admin account name and password.

Now you are ready to change the username of your normal account. Follow these steps to change the username:

1. Open system preferences.
2. Click on Users & Groups.
3. Click Unlock and enter your password (for the admin account you are using).
4. Now control-click or right-click the username you want to change.
5. Select Advanced Options.
6. Change the name to the full name.
7. Restart the computer for the changes to take effect.

Foundry

This will only change the username – not the home directory name or your short name. And, as a precaution, it can damage the account and prevent you from logging in!

We did this without any problems, although the login process took a little longer than usual when the hair was raised for a few seconds.

How to change the name of the home folder and the name of the account

Changing the name of your home folder (and the name of your account, which is linked – and as you can see in the picture above, has turned gray) is even more complicated.

As before, you need to log out of the account and make changes. So if you don’t already have a separate admin account, log in.

Here’s how to change your home folder name and account name:

1. Go to the user folder on the startup drive (open Finder to find it and click Go> Computer)
2. This will open Macintosh HD [or Untitled/whatever name your computer has] Folder
3. Inside the Macintosh HD folder is the Users folder – click to open it.
4. Inside the user folder you will find the home directory for the account you are renaming. (Write it down as you will need later).
5. Click on the folder and rename it. (Note the old and new name as you will need it one more time).
6. Enter the password for the admin account you are using when prompting.

How to change your username

After renaming your home folder you will now need to change your username – if you do not, there will be a problem because both require the same name. You will need to change the name if it shows the location of the home directory.

1. Open System Preferences> Users and Groups.
2. Click Unlock and enter the password of the admin account with which you have just logged in.
3. From the list of users, right-click or right-click on the username you want to change.
4. Select Advanced Options.
5. Change the account name field to the new name that you gave the home folder for this user.
6. Next, change the home directory field to match the new name of the home folder.
7. Click OK.
8. Turn off system preferences.
9. Restart the Mac.
10. Log in to the renamed account

If you have any problems logging in, check that the account and a directory name are the same.

Need to change your admin password? Here’s how to change your Mac admin password.

You might want to make it easier to log in to your Mac – did you know that if you have an Apple Watch you can use it to log in automatically? Here’s how to unlock and log in to your Mac with Apple Watch.