Chapter 8: Create and Manage User Accounts

How to…

• Log in and out of your Mac

• Use fast user switching

• Manage user accounts

• Set limits for user accounts

• Set login options

Mac OS X is a multiuser operating system. This means it is designed to work with several user accounts on the same computer. While you may be the only user on your Mac, you can set up dozens of accounts for different people if you need to: family members, coworkers, students, or even friends. Each user has the right to access only their files and folders, yet all users can run applications installed on the Mac. Each user’s files are organized in individual user folders (home folders), and are inaccessible to other users.

The advantage to working with a multiuser environment is the ability to seal off each user’s files from other users. This protection is pretty strong; other users really can’t access your files, though administrative users can in some circumstances. (In some situations, the administrator may want to know all the users’ passwords. This is normal since an administrator is responsible for managing a computer and needs access to certain files to perform tasks such as backing up files, troubleshooting, and maintenance.)

In this chapter, I’ll show you how to set up and work with user accounts, how to log in and log out of your Mac, how to use fast user switching to change users without logging out, how to delete accounts, and how to limit what users can do. If you need to set up two or 20 accounts on your Mac, you’ll learn how to do that in a jiffy.