Deleting the original admin account (Catalina): is it safe?

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Level 1

17 points

Deleting the original admin account (Catalina): is it safe?

I was having some issues with some applications and audio plugins on my 2020 Catalina (10.15.7) MacBook Pro and I was advised by software developers that the issues appeared to be to do with permissions and that there was a possible corruption in my admin user account.

They said the solution was to create a second admin account and to migrate to that.

I have created another admin account and I see in About This Mac that my original admin account that was created during the macOS installation is using a whopping great 147 GB of my 1 TB disk space.

So I would like to delete this account and recover this space.

Now, I have seen contradictory advice about this.

On the one hand, that my original application installations etc are somehow ‘tied’ to this original admin account. Deleting it would be bad.

On the other hand, that you only really need one admin account, just delete it.

So, is it okay to delete it?

Will there be consequences? And what kind of problems, if any, might I expect if I do?

A second (related) question is to do with choosing one of the backup options when deleting the user account (the belt and braces approach in case there are problems).

If I select the option Save the home folder as a disk image (rather than Leave the user’s home folder as is) and I then decide to restore this disk image, then because this disk image will be in the region of 147 GB will I need to have twice the amount of space in order to restore it, in other words will I need 140 GB for the disk image and another 147 GB for the restored user account (which I probably won’t have!)? Or perhaps I could move this dmg to an external drive and restore the original user from there?

Thanks.

MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 10.15

Posted on Nov 20, 2021 1:34 AM

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Answer 1

HWTech

Level 9

68,672 points

Nov 20, 2021 6:38 PM in response to i.tom

Does the new admin user account work properly? If so, then you know that something with your main user account has a problem. Try disabling the Login Items in the main user account. If that does not solve the problem, then perhaps a .plist preference file within the main user account is corrupt so deleting the preference file may resolve the issue since most .plist preference files are automatically recreated to default settings when the app is next started.

The apps are only really tied to your main user account by any custom app preferences and perhaps any locally stored data, although some proprietary apps with license keys may tie an installation to just one specific user account. Sometimes it may just be easier to use the new admin user account and manually transfer all your files, but this can sometimes be a complex and time consuming process with the risk of missing something important. Personally I would try to figure out the issue with the main user account if the new admin user account is working fine.

As far as deleting the original admin user account it will still consume the 147GB of storage if you decide to leave it on the drive or to archive it as a .dmg. AFAIK, it will require an extra 147GB to extract the contents from the .dmg archive (and to create the archive in the first place). The .dmg archive may actually consume less than 147GB since I would hope that macOS would compress the data in it, but compressing the data will require having more than 150GB of free storage space until the archiving process is completed (I would expect needing about 300GB of free space during the archiving & compression process). I've never tried to restore an archived and deleted user account, but my guess is that macOS will probably require the .dmg file to be located within the "/Users" folder if you decide to restore the account.

Make sure to have a good backup before making any major changes.

You should always have frequent and regular backups.

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Answer 2

i.tom Author

Level 1

17 points

Nov 21, 2021 3:10 AM in response to HWTech

Thanks for your suggestions.

Does the new admin user account work properly? If so, then you know that something with your main user account has a problem.

Yes, in that the main problem with the original account was that iCloud Drive's Desktop and Documents Folder option had switched off (cause unknown and causing issues with some apps) and would not switch on again. A visit to the Genius Bar did not provide a solution. I guess I should have asked here back then :-)

Running Disk Utility's First Aid, reformatting, reinstalling the OS, restoring from Time Machine, logging out of iCloud Drive on the original and logging in with the new admin account was all very time consuming (days going into weeks with my very large iCloud Drive usage).

I think I've moved too far away from trying to fix the original admin account. If all else fails I'd be more inclined to do a totally clean macOS install without restoring and all that that entails reinstalling my apps.

The apps are only really tied to your main user account by any custom app preferences and perhaps any locally stored data, although some proprietary apps with license keys may tie an installation to just one specific user account.

That's reassuring, I think I'll try removing it. I can't see things getting any worse by doing so.

AFAIK, it will require an extra 147GB to extract the contents from the .dmg archive

I thought so. I'll choose to leave the original home folder intact. If things seem to be okay after removing the original user I take it I can just delete the home folder after a suitable wait.

Make sure to have a good backup before making any major changes.

Indeed.

Thanks again.

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Deleting the original admin account (Catalina): is it safe?

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