Q: Guest Account Enables by Itself

These two issues are most likely connected because when you enable "Find my Mac" a guest account is automatically enabled. So when you are disabling the guest account "Find my Mac" is also being disabled most likely.

What exactly do you see in the login screen: "Guest" or "Guest User"? What happens if you log in to that account?

The Find My Mac "Guest User" is not a real account. It causes a reboot from the read-only Recovery partition in a mode with Safari as the only application. The idea is to keep a thief online so you can locate the stolen computer.

Hi,

I have recently found that the 'Guest' account is being automatically enabled on my laptop running OS X 10.8.3.  It seems to have switched itself on all of sudden.  I have the 'Guest' account switched off in the usual configuration - as I have no use for it.

I did have a 5 min play with the 'Find My Mac' feature (on the 14th of April) and I'm aware that this is linked to the 'Guest' account.  However when I was experimenting with the feature, I rebooted and didn't see the 'Guest' account displayed on the login screen.  I switched off the 'Find My Mac' feature and rebooted again, still no 'Guest' account displayed.  I used the MacBook half a dozen times following and upon each boot the 'Guest' account was displayed.  Then on Friday just gone (the 26th of April), the 'Guest' account appeared.  I went into the 'Groups and Logins' System Preference and switched it off.  Upon booting up yesterday, thhe 27th of April - it appeared again and the setting was enabled in the 'Groups and Logins' System Preference utility.

Anyone got any ideas what is happening?

Many thanks

Neil

I wish I knew too, as it has happened to me on Lion 10.7.5 and even at the apple store they didn't know what to do despite trying all the options. so will have to make appt with Genius as I dont want it either. Can anyine help???

I've been running 10.9 since the 6th of December and I noticed that it does that with this operating system as well.  I go into System Preferences and its listed as 'Enabled' - its really strange, as I've never used it.

If you turn your Find My Mac on, the guest accuont is enabled. You can disable the Guest account after that but it is not clear that Find My Mac will work properly after that. 

If you turn Find My Mac off, then re-enable it, you will notice that the guest account is also re-enabled if you manually turned it off.

Although it makes me uncomfortable having the guest account on, I can see the reason for it.

Very true. This answered my question. Thanks for taking the time! I was a little worried re security, etc. Never worried much with my Macs here but that was a doozy. Thanks again!

I have "Guest User" account completely disabled on my iMac yet my iPad can find it, send alerts and lock it's screen.

I have the same experience on my 2011 MBP under El Capitan (and probably older OSes too). I don't have guest accounts enabled so I can type in my password upon login quicker. Anyway the other day I got a dialog from OS X saying there was some problem with iCloud and to check the preferences. I did, and I re-logged-in, and I saw Find My Mac was unchecked (it should have been enabled, it was enabled in the past) so I checked it. Today, I turn on the Mac and I see guest accounts enabled. Disabled that, but Find My Mac is still enabled.

I really wish Apple would include a dialog upon enabling Find My Mac saying that this will optionally turn on guest mode, and a dialog in Guest Mode if you turn it off warning that FMM might not work as well.

But on my iPad you know there's no guest account and Find My iPad is fine. Maybe on the iPad and on the Mac, there should be a way to sign in to WiFi if you can't log in. This could also be useful if you forgot your password and was in a new location and needed to use your Apple ID to unlock the computer.

And then again, there's always Ethernet for those on the older Macs like mine.

Send Apple feedback. They won't answer, but at least will know there is a problem or a suggestion for improvement. If enough people send feedback, it may get the problem/suggested change solved sooner.

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