Section 122. Delete a User | Mac OS X Tiger in a Snap

122. Delete a User

BEFORE YOU BEGIN

117 About Administrative Responsibilities

118 Add a New User

Deleting a user is an essential housekeeping duty. You'll have to remove user accounts that are no longer used, delete accounts as a punitive measure against abusive users, or clean out user accounts to return the system to a pristine state if you sell your computer to someone else.

Mac OS X lets you delete any user account except for your own. When you delete a user, you can also either delete the user's account immediately (removing the user's Home folder and everything in it permanently) or package the user's Home folder into a disk image you can then browse later.

NOTE

You must be logged in as an Admin user, or able to authenticate as one using the lock icon in the Accounts Preferences , to delete another user.

1.	Open the Accounts Preferences Open the System Preferences application(under the Apple menu); click Accounts to open the Accounts Preferences pane.
2.	Select the User to Delete From the user list on the left, select the user you want to delete from the system.
3.	Remove the User Click the icon at the bottom of the list of users. NOTE Don't try to delete a user who's currently logged in. Doing so can result in an "orphaned" user account that can no longer log out until the computer is restarted. 122. Delete a User
4.	Preserve the User's Home Folder A sheet appears asking whether you want to delete the user immediately or archive the user's Home folder. Click Delete Immediately if you want the user's complete account, including the Home folder, to be immediately deleted. Click OK if you want the user's Home folder to be packaged into a disk image. If you choose this second option, the user is removed from the system's user database, but the archive of the Home folder will appear in a folder called Deleted Users inside the Users folder. You can mount this disk image by double-clicking it; you can then browse through it to retrieve any important files that the user might have had.