I have been using my late father's iMac for several years now. I am trying to change the setting over to me in order to upgrade and delete his email address. Why won't the system replace his user name with mine?
iMac 21.5″, macOS 10.13
Don't even think about that. It's an extremely risky move.
Assuming you are an Admin user, remove his user and the machine will be "yours". If you want to keep his data, select to keep his Home folder.
Why won't the system replace his user name with mine?
The short answer is that macOS was specifically designed at the outset to keep individual user accounts separate from one another.
How are you logging in to that Mac at present? Are you using your own user account, or are you logging in under your late father's account?
If his account is the only one on the Mac, then it theoretically should be an admin account. Open the User & Groups System Preferences to confirm. If it is an admin user, then you can create a new macOS user account for yourself.
If there are no admin user accounts, then there are ways to create a new one, but it may be better off to perform a clean install of macOS instead since it may be a sign of some sort of issue with macOS.
Besides a 2015 model can run at least macOS 11.x Big Sur or possibly even macOS 12.x Monterey if you have the Late-2015 model. Definitely would be a good idea to upgrade macOS to the latest supported for this hardware since you will be having difficulties accessing websites before too long because third party browsers will drop support for High Sierra at some point.
Seems like > How to request access to a deceased family member's Apple account - Apple Support might be the right way to solve your dilemma.
Would it be ok if you continued logging in under your Dad's account?
You can change the User Name associated with that Account and continue to use it as you have been doing. Otherwise, log out of your account, log in under his Account, and change the one you created today to have Administrator privileges. Let me know which of those two options you prefer and I'll provide the details.
Up until today when I created an additional user (me) I was logging in with my Dad’s credentials.
Thank you kindly for the response. No I am not the admin. But am trying to be. The computer is fairly useless other than to serf the net. Risky in what way?
First of all, you have High Sierra listed as the running version of macOS. So unless the iMac is from 2012 or newer, you can't upgrade it anyway.
Yes High Sierra but appears to be late 2015. Less hassle yo just buy a new one I guess.
Thank you. I am having problems viewing all content for sure. I do appreciate your time. Thank you so much!
inherited iMac
