Renaming Home Folder Miscalculation

AlWeir wrote:

I guess it is worth a shot but running the Mac after the miscalculation on my behalf still seems to work without to. many glitches.

If you still have the second admin user account, then you just need to follow all the steps in that Apple article to fix the problem. As long as you read everything carefully and perform each step, it should work. I would definitely make sure you have a good backup of any important data before you make the attempt...just to be safe (plus it is one of the steps in the Apple article). If you don't have a current backup before you started the renaming, then you can still copy the original home user folder in its entirety to an external drive assuming you have an admin user account to use now.

I personally would not want to rely on a system running in a broken state. You already know the only option to fix things without an a second admin user account is a complete erase which is better done now than much later when you may have even more critical data on the SSD since you may be unable to access any data on the Mac if anything goes wrong. These 2016+ Macs have a lot more new ways of losing access to the data on the internal SSD and some of those don't even involve a hardware failure.....plus data recovery (even expensive professional data recovery services) is not really an option on these 2016+ Macs.

Didn't you follow the instructions in the first section of that article and create a second admin user account? You should be able to log back into that user account to make the corrections. If you neglected this very important step, then see if you can trick macOS into running Setup Assistant again by following the instructions in this article so that you can create another admin user account:

Restarting Setup Assistant to create Admin user - Apple Community

Just make sure to follow every step completely. Every word & detail in those instructions which you linked are critical for the success of this endeavor. You are attempting to modify an advanced setting which the article even mentions could break your system, so make sure to pay close attention to every word & detail within those instructions. I believe there is only one optional step...everything else is required.

AlWeir wrote:

To answer your first question about creating a second Admin, I did create it, but rebooted it before going here.

If you actually created another admin user account, then you should be able to use it. Rebooting won't make a difference if the account was created.

The question is can I Command drag and drop it into my new Home Folder?

Not the whole folder or you will end up with the same problem again, but how are you doing it? It is dangerous to copy data from the account you are currently using, plus there will be permissions issues. The best way is to perform a clean install of macOS followed by restoring from a Time Machine backup.

If you don't have a backup, then how can you manage this Mac if you don't have any admin user accounts available? Copying the contents of the old home user folder to the new one won't make that new account an admin user account.

No, as I stated before you have to delete that user. If you have a back up, it shouldn’t be a problem. And, the admin account has nothing to do with the restriction on having the same home folder or username.

In your screenshot, I’m not sure if you understand, but the first image of the users folder, which is not your home. The users folder holds all of the home folders. The second screenshot is inside the home folder.

it is quite possible that you could drag the contents of those folders in your old home into the folders in your new home, but there is going to be a lot of stuff in the library that probably shouldn’t be replaced.

You mentioned some problems or that the old one didn’t work right? Is that what you’re saying now?

AlWeir wrote:

Log out of the tempadmin and log back into the new "XX". Will the tempadmin allow to home folders of the same name?

Have a Time Machine Backup as well as a Carbon Copy Cloner backup.

If you have a temp admin user which is fully functional and a good backup, then use the instructions in the Apple article to fix the main admin user account. What do you have to lose? Just make sure to take your time & read those instructions carefully and follow each & every step.

If you have another admin user, log out of the changed account, log into the other admin account, delete the new home folder, and rename the old folder to the new name.