Deleting a User Account

Boy it takes forever!

As I type this, I'm looking at the User Accounts pane in Settings (OS X Lion) and I've been sitting here watching Netflix while the computer has taken nearly four hours to delete a user account. It's still deleting it.

On a side note; this is a fresh re-installation of OS X Lion. I created a new account from the installation setup - the second account was created from Windows-to-Mac Migration Assistant, which is why it's being deleted.

So, the assumption is that it takes quite a while to delete user data and documents (I had to manually transfer my iTunes, photos, and all of my documents through a hard drive, and then re-transfer the stuff on the drive back into the original account.) but I'm curious to know if it should take on four hours or more?

NO

I did a clean reinstall couple of weeks ago because of Server troubles, booted into the Recovery Partition, opened Disk Utility, Erased Macintosh HD and that finished in a couple of minutes.
Are you sure you didn't press a 1/3/7 Pass Zero ??
When i was done, i Booted into my Bootable SuperDuper BackUp, inserted the Thumb Drive with 10.8 on it, and proceeded to install Mountain Lion on my Mac.
All up with a complete erase of the HD and Re-Install of the OS 1 Hr

Something is a miss Hmmmm

Me thinks TM was a little quick to the draw. I've done it too...

Don't believe I've ever deleted a user account, but don't see how it could take hours...

bobtomay said:

Me thinks TM was a little quick to the draw. I've done it too...

Don't believe I've ever deleted a user account, but don't see how it could take hours...

Click to expand...

Ahh now re reading it, do you mean by just selecting the Account and hitting the - Button ?? Either way, it shouldn't take 4 hrs.
I did delete a ™ .sparse-bundle that took a little while, but that was 500Gb worth.

Something is still amiss.

I would force Shut down Restart, Repair Permissions, and if its still showing as a Account, log out then in again, after the Repair and try again.

Well, sometime over the early morning hours it finally deleted it (I did tell it to Securely Erase the account). Nothing seems to be amiss right now but I suppose running some Disk Utility clean up wouldn't hurt.

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When I did a fresh reinstallation of Lion, I erased Macintosh HD completely - basically to the point like it was a new Mac out of the box - and it was at that point that the first account was created.

I did not know that the PC-to-Mac Migration Assistant would create a new (second) account - and after discovering it did, I hooked up an external and manually pulled all the transferred content off the second account, which then led to the deletion of it - taking nearly six hours I believe. D:

It doesn't show the account in the User Accounts pane anymore, but here goes the reboot.

Second account didn't appear in the login window, so it's gone completely.

I think it is the securely delete option that was taking so long. I've deleted user accounts and only had it take a few minutes.

Also do you store data in folders inside your user account?That can significantly increase the size of the user folder and thus increase the time needed for a secure delete.

Slydude said:

I think it id the securely delete option that was taking so long. I've deleted user accounts and only had it take a few minutes.

Also do you store data in folders inside your user account. That can significantly increase the size of the user folder and thus increase the time needed for a secure delete.

Click to expand...

This is on a MacBook, putting data on another hard drive isn't feasible. Wish I had Thunderbolt.

I don't necessarily mean on another hard drive. My data folder is on the same drive. It is just not inside my user account. If I go to delete the account there isn't much there other than the library folder. (i keep media on a network drive). I started doing that a while ago to cut down on the amount of data that needed to be cloned.

Now that there is Time machine and software that supports incremental updates to clones I might move some of that data back into the user account. At least for the things that I am the only one accessing.

Slydude said:

I don't necessarily mean on another hard drive. My data folder is on the same drive. It is just not inside my user account. If I go to delete the account there isn't much there other than the library folder. (i keep media on a network drive). I started doing that a while ago to cut down on the amount of data that needed to be cloned.

Now that there is Time machine and software that supports incremental updates to clones I might move some of that data back into the user account. At least for the things that I am the only one accessing.

Click to expand...

Ah I see. Well, if I had the knowhow to deal with home networking, I'd probably do the network drive stuff for media - but I'd probably keep it within the confines of Apple hardware (i.e the Airport Extreme) because last time I tried using a network drive (back when my Dad had this all set up) I always had problems with connectivity.

I still like the idea of hooking up a hard drive rack through Thunderbolt though, or at the very least USB 3.0.

I started with an Apple Time Capsule and put my media there primarily for convenience. I recently added an Iomega backup drive though I am not pleased with it and others in the forum probably have better solutions. Apple announced some new Airport devices at the recent keynote though I have not checked to see what type of connections it supports or suggested pricing.

My current Time Capsule does USB 2 to and I have a couple of drives attached that way. That is not much of an issue at this point because those drives are used for backup so it does not bother me too much if things are a bit slow. You're right though the extra speed would be nice.

Slydude said:

I think it is the securely delete option that was taking so long. I've deleted user accounts and only had it take a few minutes.

Click to expand...

This is exactly why. I have securely emptied trash with a couple of GB and it takes considerably longer than just Empty Trash

Solution for checking if your computer is deleting an account

Hello:
Yes, it takes an incredibly long amount of time to delete a user account, specially if you used the secure delete option.

Many people seem to be frustrated by the fact that you have nothing to tell you if the computer is working or simply stuck while deleting the account.

I have found a way to tell if the computer is working.

While the account is being deleted, go to finder, Go, computer and click on your hard drive.

Use the command-I option to see the hard drive info.

While the computer is working the hard drive will be slowly releasing space. This means that it is actually doing something. The available space will very slowly grow and the used space (which is easier to see as it uses more detailed information) will go down. It will also give you a way to estimate how long the whole process will take, as long as you more or less can calculate how much space a user was occupying.

I had a main user which I'm deleting, which means that it will probably be around 60 Gigs. So far it's taken about 10 hours to delete 6 GB so do the math…

Hope this is helpful and you can contact me with any questions.

Chris H. said:

Boy it takes forever!

As I type this, I'm looking at the User Accounts pane in Settings (OS X Lion) and I've been sitting here watching Netflix while the computer has taken nearly four hours to delete a user account. It's still deleting it.

On a side note; this is a fresh re-installation of OS X Lion. I created a new account from the installation setup - the second account was created from Windows-to-Mac Migration Assistant, which is why it's being deleted.

So, the assumption is that it takes quite a while to delete user data and documents (I had to manually transfer my iTunes, photos, and all of my documents through a hard drive, and then re-transfer the stuff on the drive back into the original account.) but I'm curious to know if it should take on four hours or more?

Click to expand...

Yes, choosing the Secure Delete option (which fills the deleted space with zeros multiple times) is why it took so long. That option wasn't necessary, normally deleting a user account will take *at most* a few minutes.