adding user account if all is on admin accout

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I have had a mac for sometime and never set up user accounts. now everyone has tons of things all on admin account and i want to set up individual accounts but not sure since everyones things are on admin.
 

chscag

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You can set up an individual user account without admin permissions easy enough, however, you'll need to copy over those applications that were installed to the admin account only. Most apps can be installed for everyone but there are some which may have installed to admin only. You need to check.
 
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You can create accounts by clicking on the Apple menu in the top right corner of the menu bar and choosing System Preferences. Near the bottom of the System Preferences pane, you'll see System and under that, Users and Groups. After unlocking the pane, you'll be able to add separate user accounts and assign them different privileges.

After that's done, everyone can copy their files from the Administrator account to their own public folders. These can be found by opening a Finder window and navigating to Users.
 
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hmmm, that didn't quite work out. gave test user admin privy even and still having permission issues. even followed a google search and went into disk utility and did repair permissions. still will not let me access files....
 
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went to test user and made file on desktop and the admin can't access that file either......
 
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was diggin around here and found a thread about a software program called maintenance. ran that and hoped for the best. no go.... still has permission problems
 
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chas_m

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I have had a mac for sometime and never set up user accounts. now everyone has tons of things all on admin account and i want to set up individual accounts but not sure since everyones things are on admin.

Maybe if you could clarify a few things for us, we can give you more accurate answers.

1. Who s "everybody"? How many people we talking about here?
2. Some basic info about Mac model, HD capacity and fullness, RAM etc is always helpful.
3. If you're an admin, why don't you simply change the other people's accounts to "user"?

Oh wait, I'll bet what you're saying is that you have multiple people using the SAME account. Ah. Yeah, that is (IMO) a bad idea.

If it were me I would have each user buy a thumb drive of the desired capacity and copy over everything they need onto it. You can share a common music library but I recommend NOT sharing a common photo library.

Anyway, once they've copied the files they want to keep onto their own thumb drives, you set up the user accounts for each person and they can log into those accounts and add the stuff from their thumb drives into their accounts. Once that's done you can remove everything they took out of your account.

Needless to say, it would be better still if "everyone" each had their own Mac or iOS device for themselves. :)
 
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Maybe if you could clarify a few things for us, we can give you more accurate answers.

1. Who s "everybody"? How many people we talking about here?
2. Some basic info about Mac model, HD capacity and fullness, RAM etc is always helpful.
3. If you're an admin, why don't you simply change the other people's accounts to "user"?

Oh wait, I'll bet what you're saying is that you have multiple people using the SAME account. Ah. Yeah, that is (IMO) a bad idea.

If it were me I would have each user buy a thumb drive of the desired capacity and copy over everything they need onto it. You can share a common music library but I recommend NOT sharing a common photo library.

Anyway, once they've copied the files they want to keep onto their own thumb drives, you set up the user accounts for each person and they can log into those accounts and add the stuff from their thumb drives into their accounts. Once that's done you can remove everything they took out of your account.

Needless to say, it would be better still if "everyone" each had their own Mac or iOS device for themselves. :)


you nailed it! that is what is happening. i didn't know any better then, and best buy didn't help buy suggesting separate user accounts. 3 people started out on the imac (10.6.8 os 3.06 intel core duo 12 gb ram 500 gb hd) was testing this on macbook pro 10.7.5 2.4 intel core I5 8 gb ram 500 gb hd that i have moved on to. now wife and son fighting for desktop and all of his minecraft stuff all over the place is not sitting well with mamma. besides that i just don't like the idea of admin privy to those who can send things into a tail spin.
your suggestion of copying to thumb drive seems like a valid option. i will try that. thanks a lot
 
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What exactly happened when you tried to create a new user account?
 
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i could not go into finder and copy over files. permissions issues. files had red circle with a dash and would not let me copy even tried making user admin
 
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You tried copying them to each user's Public folder? If that didn't work, then I guess you'll have to transfer everything via external drive, but you should be able to copy things to public folders.
 
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thanks oneironaunt, i was missing where you said use the public folder. i just saw all other folders with permission problems and missed that. that worked fine. mission accomplished! now the task begins of making users and moving stuff for mama and son. will the email work ok for mama if i make her a user account and all was coming to the one admin account? will i have to reset it up?
 
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Your Mac's Specs
21" iMac * 2.8 Ghz Intel Core i7 * 16GB 1333 Mhz DDR3 * 1TB HD *AMD Radeon HD 6770M 512 MB
Once you make all the user accounts, each user will have a Public folder, so transferring documents will be easy.

Since each account will be brand new and at the default settings, I'm pretty sure you'll have to set up Mail again, but it's pretty easy. Just launch the Mail app, enter your email address and password, and it should be good to go. Everyone will probably have to configure their account settings to the way they want them.
 

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