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Is there any way to remove an old home user name from 4 computers ago? I followed the procedure and lost all of my contents and apps.

I followed the procedure on this blog to change the home user name that was copied from four computers ago. All of the contents are mine, and I am the only user of the computer, and on the "users and groups" on system preference, only I appear. Yet, the home user's name appears as always the wrong person's name. I created a new user under my name, copied the contents, then went to erase the home user, only to find that I can never erase the home user. There is no way to redesignate the home user either. After a lot of searching, I found the instructions in this blog. I created another admin user and changed the home user name as directed. A window popped up and told me to restart. When I restarted, the computer turned on without any contents in it. It was completely erased. Nobody warned me that the computer will be completely erased. I had to copy from a backup SSD. I wasted SO MUCH time and I have this incredibly annoying wrong name still appearing as the home user.

MacBook Pro 16″, macOS 11.1

Posted on Feb 1, 2021 12:07 AM

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Posted on Feb 1, 2021 8:41 PM

You have not provided us with any links to the instructions you used to rename a user account, but it seems you are using incorrect instructions or you made a mistake when following the instructions. Here is an Apple article with instructions for changing the user account name on macOS:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201548


You should never lose any data if you have proper backups. Even if you have backups you should always make sure the backups are current just before making any major system modifications.

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Feb 1, 2021 8:41 PM in response to young151

You have not provided us with any links to the instructions you used to rename a user account, but it seems you are using incorrect instructions or you made a mistake when following the instructions. Here is an Apple article with instructions for changing the user account name on macOS:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201548


You should never lose any data if you have proper backups. Even if you have backups you should always make sure the backups are current just before making any major system modifications.

Is there any way to remove an old home user name from 4 computers ago? I followed the procedure and lost all of my contents and apps.

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