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How to remove other users in my Mac?

I read somewhere on this forum that this is "normal" language but I do not trust this. I am a very private person and do not want to even think someone else has access. Is it possible to delete guest users, admin, everyone, and staff from having access to my computers. If indeed it is true that admin, everyone, staff is just ME well why bother having my name there as a seperate entity? I want to delete all of these "others" and have just ME listed as the admin and the only one to ever have access to my computer. I was told not too worry but I cannnot help it and plan to leave Apple computers if I cannot change this. Please help me!



[Re-Titled by Moderator]


iMac 27″, macOS 12.0

Posted on Dec 9, 2021 8:46 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Dec 10, 2021 6:33 PM

nicho112 wrote:

If indeed it is true that admin, everyone, staff is just ME well why bother having my name there as a seperate entity? I want to delete all of these "others" ...

You are confusing Users with Groups. Admin, everyone and staff are Groups that are part of the file permissions/security structure of macOS. You cannot change them, they are part of the system. They are not Users.


Each User Account you create on your Mac may be a member of one or more Groups. For example, if you are an admin User then you are a member of the admin Group, staff Group and the everyone Group. On the other hand, Standard User accounts are members of the everyone Group but not the admin or staff Groups. There are a few additional Groups used by the system but they are generally not available to normal user accounts.


The very first account you created when you installed your Mac automatically became an admin User and a member of the admin Group. If you have only one User account on your Mac, then you are the only user and you are also the only admin user.


As the admin user you can create/manage/delete User accounts in System Preferences. You can also turn off the Guest account.



3 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Dec 10, 2021 6:33 PM in response to nicho112

nicho112 wrote:

If indeed it is true that admin, everyone, staff is just ME well why bother having my name there as a seperate entity? I want to delete all of these "others" ...

You are confusing Users with Groups. Admin, everyone and staff are Groups that are part of the file permissions/security structure of macOS. You cannot change them, they are part of the system. They are not Users.


Each User Account you create on your Mac may be a member of one or more Groups. For example, if you are an admin User then you are a member of the admin Group, staff Group and the everyone Group. On the other hand, Standard User accounts are members of the everyone Group but not the admin or staff Groups. There are a few additional Groups used by the system but they are generally not available to normal user accounts.


The very first account you created when you installed your Mac automatically became an admin User and a member of the admin Group. If you have only one User account on your Mac, then you are the only user and you are also the only admin user.


As the admin user you can create/manage/delete User accounts in System Preferences. You can also turn off the Guest account.



Dec 10, 2021 2:08 PM in response to nicho112

The Original User Account on this computer, when it was Very First setup as Brand New is normally the Admin Account.


As such, it can add accounts, degrade privileges of other accounts to Standard with restrictions, and or remove the and and all additional accounts.


As for Guest Account - that can be Turned Off so it is not presented when the computer is cold booted.


Set up users, guests, and groups on Mac


How to remove other users in my Mac?

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