In this episode, Tyler walks through how multi-user accounts work on macOS—why you might use them, how to add a new user, ways to switch quickly (including Touch ID), and how to safely delete an account while preserving data for troubleshooting. He also covers guest access, account types (Administrator, Standard, and Sharing Only), and a few accessibility tips with VoiceOver.
Key Points
- Why multi-user: Separate files, settings, and Apple Account sync per person; great for shared Macs or isolating issues by testing in a fresh account.
- Account types:
- Administrator can change system settings and install software.
- Standard has its own files/settings but cannot administer the Mac.
- Sharing Only can access shared services remotely but cannot log in at the Mac.
- Guest user: If FileVault is on, Guest can only use Safari; if off, Guest can use apps but all data is wiped on logout.
- Fast User Switching: Add the menu-bar item via Control Center settings (listed as “Menu Bar” in macOS Tahoe per the recording timeframe), then switch from the status menu.
- Touch ID switching: Register different fingers per account to jump between users instantly—even from the lock screen.
- Deleting an account: Three options—(1) save home folder as a disk image under Deleted Users, (2) don’t change the home folder, or (3) delete the home folder.
- Troubleshooting tip: You can preserve your home folder, delete the account, then recreate it with the same account name to merge and reset settings—handy if issues are account-specific.
- Shared folder caveat: The /Users/Shared folder defaults to read/write for creator and read-only for others; permissions can be finicky, and other sharing methods may be easier.
Step-by-Step Guide
- Create a New User
- Open System Settings > Users & Groups, and click Add User…
- Pick an Account Type (Administrator, Standard, or Sharing Only). Standard is the default.
- Enter Full Name; Account Name (home folder name) will auto-fill. Set a Password and optional Hint, then click Create User.
- First Login & Touch ID
- Log out of your account, select the new user, and sign in.
- In Setup Assistant, the user can enroll Touch ID with their finger.
- Enable Fast User Switching (Menu Bar)
- Go to System Settings > Control Center (labeled “Menu Bar” in future macOS versions relative to the time of recording).
- Find Fast User Switching and set it to Show (e.g., show Account Name). Then use the status menus to switch users.
- Switch Between Users Instantly
- From the menu bar via Fast User Switching, or with Touch ID, a user can press the sensor with the finger registered to their account (works at the lock screen once accounts have been logged into).
- Share Files Between Accounts (Optional)
- Use /Users/Shared; creator has read/write, others read-only by default. Adjust permissions via Get Info if needed—but expect some Unix permission quirks.
- Delete a User Safely
- In Users & Groups, click the "Show detail" button for an account, click Delete User, and choose what to do with the Home folder.
Transcript
Disclaimer: This transcript was generated by AI Note Taker – VoicePen, an AI-powered transcription app. It is not edited or formatted, and it may not accurately capture the speakers’ names, voices, or content.
Tyler: Hey AppleVisors, Tyler here with a demonstration and walkthrough of multi-user support on macOS. This may be useful if you, for example, share your Mac or you want to let someone use your Mac without giving them access to your files and settings. Even if you don't share your Mac, you may find that creating a new account is a useful troubleshooting tool, as newly created accounts use default settings. which can help you determine whether an issue is system-wide or limited to a particular account. With multi-user support, each person who uses your Mac can have their own account with their own files, settings, and connection to their Apple account so they can sync with their devices. In this tutorial, I'll be demonstrating how to create an account, log into, out of, and switch between accounts, And finally, how to delete an account. Much of this is done in Users and Groups settings. So to start, I'm going to go to System Settings on my Mac.
VoiceOver: U for Users and Groups.
Tyler: and VO globe, right? And interact with the scroll area. And I'm just going to give him a little overview of the options in this window. Okay.
Tyler/VoiceOver: That's me. Show detail. If I want to change settings for an account, that's where you do it.
Tyler: And I'll come back to that later.
VoiceOver: Admin's the account type guest user guest user.
Tyler: If you want to let someone temporarily use your Mac, but don't want to create an account for them, you can enable the guest user. If you have FileVault on, guests can only use Safari. If it's off, then the guests can log into the Mac and use whatever apps are on it. But then when they log out, all files they create are deleted and all settings are reset to their defaults.
VoiceOver: Show detail, button, off.
Tyler: Off, because the guest user is off for me, if you're right.
VoiceOver: Add group, button.
Tyler/VoiceOver: Add group. User account groups, as the name suggests, are, well, groups of user accounts. They can be useful if you are sharing files among different accounts. Rather than setting individual permissions for each user, you can group them and set permissions for those groups. If you are a home user, I can't say I've ever seen someone use this to share files or to manage user accounts with groups. I picture it more in an enterprise setting, maybe one where something like Active Directory is used. But nonetheless, if you want to create a group or explore it, you can add a group via Reddit. Add user if I want to add an account, which I'll come back to shortly. Automatically log in as. That's dimmed for me because I have FileVault on. If you have it off, you can choose to have it automatically log in when you turn the Mac on. I can't say I recommend that because when you do that, at least from my understanding, there's no password. You don't have to enter a password. Just turn on the Mac and you're in.
VoiceOver: VRA.
Tyler: If you have FileVault off, this pop-up menu should be available where you can choose to log in as a user if you want right when turning the Mac on.
Tyler/VoiceOver: VRA. Network account server. If you use something like Active Directory, you can bind your Mac to a server. I don't have that. VRA. VRA. And that's just a little artifact there and the help button. That is it for the users and group settings window. So I'm going to demonstrate how to create a user account. To do that, I'm going to VL left back to add user.
VoiceOver: Add user. Okay. Add user. Button in. Full name. Dialog. Full name. Edit text.
Tyler: If you go below the left, jump to the top of the dialog.
VoiceOver: New user. Standard. New user. Pop-up button.
Tyler: Standard. That's the default account type. I'm just going to give an overview of these account types in the pop-up menu. We have... Menu.
VoiceOver: Checkmark.
Tyler/VoiceOver: Standard. If I go up... Administrator. Administrator. Administrators or admins can access all files and settings on the Mac when you first set up your Mac. an administrator account is created. So if you have no other accounts, you're the administrator. To complete certain tasks, like use the installer app or install software updates, change certain settings, you may be prompted to enter your password, which grants apps and processes administrator privileges. Standard accounts, on the other hand, cannot grant administrator privileges. They can have their own files and settings, but cannot change settings for other users or do other administrative tasks. If you're logged in as a standard user and attempt to perform a task that requires administrative privileges, that user will need to enter the name and password of an administrator as opposed to simply entering the password, which is the case when logged in as an administrator. So we have administrator. Checkmark. Standard. Sharing only. And sharing only is a type of account where others can log in to your Mac remotely if it advertises sharing services, but cannot log in directly to actually use the computer. But for our purposes, I'm just going to choose standard. I'm just going to keep it how it is.
VoiceOver: Standard, new user, pop-up button. Full name, edit text.
Tyler/VoiceOver: Full name is how the account will be identified at the login prompt. It doesn't actually have to be a person's full name. But I'll just type in demo. VRA. Account name. Account name. Demo. And that's autofilled based on what I put into the full name. That's the name of the home folder. The home folder is basically where a user's stuff lives. Desktop, documents, downloads, et cetera. So a VRA. This will be used as the name for your home folder. Yep. Password. Password. Password required. I'll enter a password now.
Tyler: Password hint. If the user forgets the password, they can use the hint if it might help them remember it. As an administrator, you can reset the passwords for other users. So if they forget their password, they could come to you and you could go into user's In Group Settings, hit Show Detail on the account and hit the Reset Password button. But I'm just going to type in something.
VoiceOver: There, right?
Tyler: And now I'm at the bottom of the scroll area in this dialog, so I'm going to stop interacting via Shift-Up Arrow.
VoiceOver: There, right?
Tyler/VoiceOver: Create User. Okay, so here we are back in Users and Group Settings. I feel left user account standard, standard show detail, show detail demo that just appeared there because that is the newly created account. So I'm going to get out of here now. So now I'm back on my desktop.
Tyler: And before I actually demonstrate how to log into the new account, I'm going to take a little detour into the user's folder to show you what it's like to navigate the file system up to user data. So the users folder is located at the root of your startup disk, which is by default called Macintosh HD. You can go into Macintosh HD, or you can just choose go to folder from the go menu or press command shift G and type slash users, which is what I'm going to do now.
VoiceOver: Return. And we have demo, which is the newly created account. Shared folder.
Tyler/VoiceOver: Tyler folder and Tyler, which is me. If I open that table applications folder downloads folder movies folder.
Tyler: This is where it starts, where things will start to look familiar. If you're going up through the file system and looking for your data, cause these are all your folders. Of course, you don't have to go into the user's folder to find your home folder or any of these folders. Many of them are located in the go menu and have their own keyboard shortcuts, including your home folder, which is command shift H. So if you're in Finder, pressing Command-Shift-H will take you to the home folder of the currently logged in user. In addition, in the Go to Folder dialog, or in Terminal, the home folder of the current user is denoted by the tilde symbol with shift accent. So if I wanted to go to my Downloads folder, I'd press Command-Shift-G, type tilde slash Downloads. If I go back out to the Users folder...
VoiceOver: Go to demo.
Tyler: So here I am. I can see that there's desktop and all the other folders. But there's no permission to read because by default, other users cannot see their settings and files. Now, as an administrator, of course, I could change those permissions if I wanted. I go into the info window for that folder and unlock it with my administrator credentials. and change it if I wanted to something like read and write or read only. You may have noticed when I was scrolling through that user's folder that there's another folder called shared. This is where if you are sharing files between accounts, you can put them in the shared folder. By default, the person who creates the file has read and write access. Other accounts have read only access. You can change that if you want. However, I've found that dealing with Unix file permissions like these can make things a little finicky. And these days there are, in my opinion, many easier ways to share files. So I don't recommend, if you have multiple users on your Mac, there are other ways to share files. But nevertheless, if you want to explore the shared folder or sharing files between accounts, you could put them in the shared folder and to you, they'll by default be read and write. To others, they'll be read only. Of course, they can change that by going into the info window. So that's the users folder, so I'm just going to close out of that now. Close window. Actions available. So now I'm on the desktop, and I'm going to log out of my account, which is the currently logged in user. I could choose to log out from the Apple menu or just press Command-Shift-Q.
VoiceOver: Authentication. Log out. System dialog. Are you sure you want to quit all applications and log out now?
Tyler: Return.
VoiceOver: Are you sure you want to quit all applications?
Tyler: Okay, so it's prompting me for my password, but if I VL left.
VoiceOver: Show all users.
Tyler: Okay, so here I am in the group, so we have demo. If I VL right, we have Tyler. I'm going to VL left to demo. VL space. Enter the password. I'm going to give it a second to log in, and then I'm going to turn on VoiceOver and go through the setup assistant. VoiceOver on setup assistant. Window, window. Accessibility has keyboard focus. Okay, so this is the setup assistant. It is similar to the process you go through when starting up your Mac from the first time. I'm going to skip through most of these, but I'm just going to demonstrate how it works. I'm just going to VL GlobalWrite. Not now, button. Not now.
Tyler/VoiceOver: Accessibility. Accessibility feature. Vision. Button. Date this icon. This icon appears when an Apple feature asks to use. Okay. Data and privacy. Continue. Learn more. Back. Learn back. Continue. Button. Sign into your Apple account. You are. Skip. Continue. Back. Set up later. Button. In alert dialogue, don't skip button. Are you sure you want to skip default button? You are find my closing dial. Find my, find my allows you to send this Mac messages and remotely lock or erase it. Find my, we'll use the Apple account T bullet, bullet, bullet two. Okay. So that's my Apple account because that's the only one signed in. That's what it's going to use, um, for find my as one system. If you're right, personal data, you back continue. Screen time. Get a weekly report with insights about your screen time and set time limits for apps and websites you want to manage. Okay. Read downtime content. Screen time. Screen setup app. Continue. Apple intelligence. Intelligence that understands your personal context. Connect to Wi-Fi and power to prepare for Apple intelligence. New ways to express your system. Start build for about app. Set up later. App. Set up Apple intelligence. Set up later. Button. Siri. Siri is an intelligent assistant that helps you find information. Continue button. Speak to Siri. Speak and back button. It wants me to speak to Siri. I'm not going to do that. Siri. Set up later. Touch ID. Touch ID. This is what I want to focus on. So if you're right. Touch ID. Use your fingerprint to unlock your Mac and make purchases with Apple Pay. Start by placing your finger or thumb on touch ID. You are currently. And I'm going to use a different finger than what I use for my account. And about touch ID and private set up touch ID later back, continue button, place your finger. Okay. You are currently on a text element. First place your place, your place, your place, your place for place your first and replace your place. Your thing. Second is placing and lifting my finger. Second to place your voice server. Talk your face. Second place. Your thing. Second place. Your thing. Touch ID is ready. OK. Your fingerprint can be used to unlock your map. Second enrollment back. Continue. Choose your look. Select light. Dim. Select dark. Auto. Back. Continue. Buck. Window. Set up. Set up assistant. Window. Window. Choose your look. Select light. Dark. Busy. Back. Busy. Progress indicator. Busy. I'll just give this a sec. You are currently on a progress indicator. Microsoft auto update is launched in the background. Auto busy progress indicator. You are cur... Give this just a couple more seconds. Hopefully shouldn't take too long. ** Speaker 4 **: Back busy auto is back and continue. Back, busy, auto, car, light, select, choose your, choose your, choose your, auto, busy, back, continue. Back, busy, progress indicator. You are currently. I'm just going to check and see if there are any windows or dialogs that are in the way. Display brightness. Window. Window. No items in. Busy. User authentication is required. You are currently on a progress indicator. auto busy progress busy progress microsoft ready for apple intelligence microsoft auto red ready for apple intelligence required data notice oh that is a another app i have installed um microsoft auto update helps update learn okay button finder desktop desk finder okay so now that i just had to dismiss that dialogue that took a um a little longer than i expected um but once that dialogue came up and i hit okay That is through and through the setup assistant. Um, you may find if you have third party apps installed, depending on which ones, because the app thinks it's a new computer, it might, um, need to show some dialogues and splash screens and whatnot. Um, but either way, here we are on the desktop. Now notice when I was in my account, I was using Alex, whereas now in the new account is using Samantha. because VoiceOver is now using its default settings. If I wanted to use my settings in this account, I could export my settings in VoiceOver Utility on my account to the shared folder and then import them from that folder into VoiceOver Utility on this account. So here I am. I'm just on an empty desktop now where this user could put in their files and change their settings as they wish. So now I'm going to change back to my account. Now I could log out and log back in, but there's an easier way to do that. And to do that, I'm going to go into system settings, control center, and add the fast user switching item to the menu bar if it hasn't been added already. I don't know if it adds it by default when you create a new account, but I'm going to VoiceOver is making a dialogue sound, so I'm just going to make sure I know what that is. Desktop window system dialogue. System dialogue. Secure edit pass. Enter a password to unlock the disk. Remember the children. Cancel. Finder. Okay. It wanted me to unlock an encrypted disk again because this is a new user. It doesn't know because it doesn't have access to my keychain that I have the disk password set to unlock. in my account, but obviously since it's a new key chain, it doesn't have that password, but I'm going to go into system settings menu bar, Apple menu, 10 items about the system settings, ellipsis closing the system. Now it ready, ready for Apple and tech rope. Notice ready for red, ready for Apple intelligence. I do not need that show. Not now. Apple and tell it not scroll area system setting C for control center control center. Now, in the future, this setting may be located in menu bar. So this is being recorded in August of 2025 with macOS Tahoe Leader this year. The control center setting is being changed to, it's listed as menu bar in this table, but this is where you'd find the setting. So I'll VL globe right. Control center in control. And to get to fast user switching, I'm not going to go through each one. I'm just going to VOF. And type fast. Fast user switching. V-O-R-A. From this pop-up menu, I'm going to choose show. Okay, so you can choose. And that's all the same for me. Icon, this is visual. But I'm just going to choose. Account name. I don't know what the effect is or if there is any effect when you choose icon versus a name. Closing menu. Account name. Okay. So now I'm going to close out. Clip finder. And press VOM twice to get to the status menus. Status menus. Demo. Status menu. 100% demo. Demo. So demo. Here we are. And that is... the fast user switching memo menu. So I'm going to feel space application demo button, Tyler button, login window button users and group settings. So here we are. I'm going to choose mine and Tyler button finder login window, enter password. Okay. Enter my password.
VoiceOver: Finder is not responding. Welcome to Mac OS. Voice over is on. Finder, desktop, Dropbox, alias. Actions without focus. Do not disturb.
Tyler: Okay, so here I am back in my account with my settings and my voice over voice being Alex. If I wanted to switch, I could just go into the menu bar and choose demo, but there's an even easier way. With Touch ID, I can take the finger that I used to register with the new account, the demo account, and press the Touch ID button with that finger. Switching to user, demo. Here I am in demo. If a user approaches a Mac with the screen is locked, for example, if the Mac's been idle and another user's been logged in, assuming they've already logged in with a password, they can just rest their finger on the Touch ID sensor at the lock screen and they can switch. But because the computer is unlocked, I'd need to actually press the button to get it to work. But it says switching to user demo. So here I am back in the demo account. If I press the finger that I used to register my account with, touch ID. Just like that, I have switched over to Tyler. So that's how to log into, out of, and switch accounts. I'm going to go back into the demo account and log out because I no longer need it. for the rest of this demonstration. Log out. And because I'm already logged in, I just used Touch ID at that prompt. So here I am back in my account. And now I'm going to go back to Users and Group Settings.
VoiceOver: View for Users and Groups. Scroll area. Okay. That's just my profile picture. VRA. Demo profile picture.
Tyler: If I wanted to put a picture on any of these accounts, I just hit that and go through that process.
VoiceOver: But that's...
Tyler/VoiceOver: purely visual and I am totally blind, so I've never actually used that. If I V-O right. V-O right again. Show detail. So here's where I could change the settings for the account. If I V-O space. Okay, demo. So if I need to reset the password for that account, that's what I'd do. I'd go in here and hit password reset. Allow this user to administer this computer. Allow this user to administer this computer. Off switch.
Tyler: Because it's a standard account, allow this user to administer this computer is off. If I wanted to make them an administrator, I just turn it on.
VoiceOver: Feel right? Help button.
Tyler/VoiceOver: Help. Delete user. Button. Delete user. Cancel button. Cancel. Okay. Button. Okay. So I hit okay. Show detail. Button. Here I am back in users and groups. Now, if I VO left. Demo. And press VO shift M, there are more settings I can access. So... menu down advanced options. And these aren't something you'll need to, you know, know about every or deal with every day, but I think it's a good thing to know where these settings are in case you do need them.
Tyler: And this is an example of administrator access. If I was logged in with the standard account, I would need to enter the name Tyler and my password in order to grant system settings administrator privileges. Okay, so here I am in the advanced options dialog. Okay, if you're all right. So by default, new accounts are created in the staff group. If you've created your own groups, this is where you could change it. So if you wanted to change the account name, the name of the home folder, in a nutshell, that involves going from a different account going into the Users folder, renaming the folder in Finder, and then going into this dialog to point it to the newly renamed folder so it knows not to create a new folder the next time you log in. But if I do it right...
Tyler/VoiceOver: Two seven five nine eight seven zero two zero one four six three. Okay. So I just stopped interacting with that scroll area. So those are the advanced options. If you need to change some of those, that's where you'd go. And here we are back in the main users and group settings window.
Tyler: Now it's time to delete the account. So to confirm that I'm on the show detail button for the right account, I'm going to VL left to see the name. Demo. Yep, that's it. So show detail. Show detail.
VoiceOver: Seven items. Demo.
Tyler: Profile picture. And since the button is toward the bottom of the dialog, VL globe right.
VoiceOver: Allow this user to administer this compelled but delete user button.
Tyler: Okay. VL right past to delete user. I'm going to hit that.
VoiceOver: Denial group. Are you sure you want to delete the user account? Demo. Okay, so if I view right... So this may be useful if you want to delete the account and prevent a user from logging in while preserving their data. So if you view right... So that's the default. If you do that, like I said, you'll have a deleted user's disk image in the user's folder.
Tyler: That way, it takes up a little less space on your startup disk. If you want to restore that account, you would take the home folder, move it out of the deleted users image, put it back to the users folder, and then create a new account with that name as the account name. And it would recognize that a folder by that name already exists in that location and will merge the new account with the existing folder. So if you go right,
VoiceOver: Don't change the home folder. The home folder remains in the user's folder. Radio button 203.
Tyler: Okay, so if you opt to not change the home folder, it will just be there in the user's folder. If you want to create a new account while preserving the data, just hit add user, use the same account name, and macOS will recognize that a folder by that name exists and will just create the new account and merge with the folder. Back when I mentioned this as a troubleshooting tool, this is what I mean. If you want to see if a particular issue you're having is limited to a particular account, you can create a new account temporarily to see if it happens. And if you determine that there's an issue with your settings or your account, you can delete your account while preserving your home folder, and then just create a new account with your name, merge it to your home folder, which may resolve the problem. If I VRWrite again.
VoiceOver: Delete the home folder. Radio button. Three of three.
Tyler: Delete the home folder. Pretty self-explanatory. You do that. You delete the account. You delete the data associated with it. Selected. That's what I'm going to select because I don't need this account.
VoiceOver: VRWrite. Cancel. Button. Delete user. Button.
Tyler/VoiceOver: Delete user. No action available. Button. Here I am back in users and groups settings. Tyler.
VoiceOver: Tyler. Show me to admin. Account. Get user.
Tyler: Okay. So here we are and the demo account is gone. So that's a demonstration and walkthrough of multi-user support on macOS. For people who share their Mac or if you just want to explore or know how this works, if you're doing some troubleshooting, it can be useful. In any case, I hope you found it helpful. Peace.