You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!

When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

User profile for user: CA-Wind-Rider
CA-Wind-Rider Author
User level: Level 1
24 points

Can't Delete Admin Account OSX 10.13.6 High Sierra

I'm trying to reset this Mac. I deleted all the other user accounts. I'm trying to delete the Admin account, since it has stuff associated with it (iTunes, Pictures, etc.)


I tried the obvious:

  1. logout the old the admin account that I want to delete
  2. login into another (newly) created Admin account
  3. in System Preferences/User Accounts, Click on the lock to unlock
  4. select the admin account
  5. click on the minus sign.
  6. I get the msg "To delete user "admin", you need to enter their password. I do so and click Allow, but the account isn't deleted and no error message is shown.


I also can't change the admin account to be non-admin.


I'm wondering if I should use brute force, and cd to: /Users/admin and then do:


sudo rm -rf /Users/admin


but I'm afraid there may be some weird OS X situation that won't make this work cleanly. It seems like this admin account is special some how, so this seems like a bad idea.


I also tried the trick on this page:

https://medium.com/@ambroselittle/cant-delete-original-admin-user-on-macos-high-sierra-1d79fb438246


but I couldn't save the GeneratedUID - I get the error msg "Operation denied because the current credentials do not have the appropriate privileges" even though I'm logged in as Admin.


I've looked at a number of other discussion pages but unfortunately, these pages are locked and I can't add to the thread. ( Can't delete admin user in High Sierra - Apple Community )


Any ideas?





MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 14.6

Posted on Sep 23, 2024 7:03 PM

Reply
2 replies
User profile for user: HWTech
HWTech
User level: Level 9
60,752 points

Sep 24, 2024 9:52 PM in response to CA-Wind-Rider

On a system with a slow hard drive, deleting a whole user account can take a while. It has been a long time since I deleted a user account. It is possible macOS is still working in the background to actually delete the data (or if you are saving the data, then it takes time to archive it).


Have you rebooted the computer to see whether that user account is still available & tried again if it is still there? Sometimes a simple restart can fix odd issues.


Have you tried to boot into Safe Mode & delete the user account there? It is possible you have some third party software installed which is interfering with the process.


I would not just brute force the removal without first trying to figure out why you are unable to delete it the official way since it may be revealing an issue you with the system you never knew you had. Besides, just deleting the home user folder still leaves behind remnants within macOS since the system will still recognize that user as being valid to administer the system which can be a security issue since you will forget about it as time goes on & you migrate it to newer systems. At the very least you would want to use the command line to actually remove that user's privileges & accounts first, then finally deleting their home user folder. I've never done this, but I know it would involve multiple steps/commands since I have seen those commands to manually create a new macOS user account & home user folder (I never did that either).


I hope you have a good backup before you try to do anything.


Reply

Can't Delete Admin Account OSX 10.13.6 High Sierra

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.
Learn more Sign up