How to switch my administrator and standard user? I just purchased a new iMac and by mistake started adding apps I want to use regularly to the administrator account instead of my standard user account. How to fix this? Is there a way to switch which account is administrator and which is standard? Or is there a way to just move all the apps from administrator to standard user?
iMac (M4, 2024)
bpgf wrote:
How to switch my administrator and standard user? I just purchased a new iMac and by mistake started adding apps I want to use regularly to the administrator account instead of my standard user account. How to fix this? Is there a way to switch which account is administrator and which is standard? Or is there a way to just move all the apps from administrator to standard user?
The apps are almost always installed system-wide, usually in /Applications (for app bundles), or sometimes into other system-wide places. Approximately nobody uses the local ~/Applications folder.
However, the app-specific settings are located per-user.
You can either find and manually migrate the settings-related files (usually plists) for the apps of interest, or can re-create the settings plists in the new login, or can create a new admin user (or two) and demote the original admin user, or can backup and restore the login into a different (new) login.
Apple has locked down macOS itself in recent years, and an admin user can damage a whole lot less of macOS than in years past, with the potential damage largely limited to other users’ data, and that data can (usually) (preferably) be recovered from backups.
The brute-force option (and probably both the easiest and the least disruptive) is to back up everything (probably backing up everything twice, ‘cuz backups are good), erase macOS, run setup as far as creating a new admin login NOT USING THE NAME YOU WANT TO USE FOR YOUR OWN LOGIN, and then use Migration Assistant to create a new non-admin user and migrate your old admin contents from the backup.
You absolutely want (need) a working admin account, so I’d probably leave the current admin account alone, or would create a third account as admin so that any problems that might arise while shuffling between your two environments won’t effect st least one admin account.
bpgf wrote:
How to switch my administrator and standard user? I just purchased a new iMac and by mistake started adding apps I want to use regularly to the administrator account instead of my standard user account. How to fix this? Is there a way to switch which account is administrator and which is standard? Or is there a way to just move all the apps from administrator to standard user?
The apps are almost always installed system-wide, usually in /Applications (for app bundles), or sometimes into other system-wide places. Approximately nobody uses the local ~/Applications folder.
However, the app-specific settings are located per-user.
You can either find and manually migrate the settings-related files (usually plists) for the apps of interest, or can re-create the settings plists in the new login, or can create a new admin user (or two) and demote the original admin user, or can backup and restore the login into a different (new) login.
Apple has locked down macOS itself in recent years, and an admin user can damage a whole lot less of macOS than in years past, with the potential damage largely limited to other users’ data, and that data can (usually) (preferably) be recovered from backups.
The brute-force option (and probably both the easiest and the least disruptive) is to back up everything (probably backing up everything twice, ‘cuz backups are good), erase macOS, run setup as far as creating a new admin login NOT USING THE NAME YOU WANT TO USE FOR YOUR OWN LOGIN, and then use Migration Assistant to create a new non-admin user and migrate your old admin contents from the backup.
You absolutely want (need) a working admin account, so I’d probably leave the current admin account alone, or would create a third account as admin so that any problems that might arise while shuffling between your two environments won’t effect st least one admin account.
bpgf wrote:
How to switch my administrator and standard user? I just purchased a new iMac and by mistake started adding apps I want to use regularly to the administrator account instead of my standard user account. How to fix this? Is there a way to switch which account is administrator and which is standard? Or is there a way to just move all the apps from administrator to standard user?
Apps you install on a Mac are available for use in *ALL* user accounts, not just the account that installed them. You do not install apps multiple times in different accounts.
Also, DO NOT alter or remove the original admin account that was created when you first set up your new Mac. It is known as the "Owner" account and is a significant component to macOS. You can create additional admin & user accounts to your heart's content ... just don't alter or delete the first one.
MartinR wrote:
Apps you install on a Mac are available for use in *ALL* user accounts, not just the account that installed them.
There is a system-level Applications folder, and there are also user-level Applications folders. I believe that, for the most part, the latter go unused, but I suppose that one could move applications there. Even if, most of the time, there would be little value in doing so.
Open the Users & Groups section of System Settings, click the Info button for the standard account, allow it to administer the computer, log out and into it, and turn the setting off for the first one.
(262492)
MartinR wrote:
Also, DO NOT alter or remove the original admin account that was created when you first set up your new Mac. It is known as the "Owner" account and is a significant component to macOS. You can create additional admin & user accounts to your heart's content ... just don't alter or delete the first one.
+1 for mentioning this.
The existence of an "Owner" account is a new thing on Apple Silicon Macs. Someone accustomed to the way that system administration worked on Intel-based Macs, pre-Catalina days, could trip over this, or over other security changes that Apple has been making in recent versions of macOS.
Servant of Cats wrote:
There is a system-level Applications folder, and there are also user-level Applications folders. I believe that, for the most part, the latter go unused, but I suppose that one could move applications there. Even if, most of the time, there would be little value in doing so.
In all my years supporting Macs, I have never used a user-level Applcations folder, so it was "out of sight, out of mind" when I posted my earlier reply. I suppose there are reasons someone may want to restrict an app to a specific user account but in my experience there has never been any good reason to do that ... and very good reasons NOT to do it. I would not advise anyone to do it.
Further note ...
Some apps require you to re-enter your license code or user ID in the app in order to use it in each user account on your Mac. This is not a re-installation of the app, just re-entry of a license code or user ID in the app.
MartinR wrote:
In all my years supporting Macs, I have never used a user-level Applcations folder, so it was "out of sight, out of mind" when I posted my earlier reply.
I just realized there is another reason the elusive "user-level Applications" folder was "out of sight, out of mind."
That's because there isn't any default user-level Applications folder (~/Applications). It only gets created when a user or app intentionally creates it. Going all the way back to Panther, I have never seen a default ~/Applications folder nor do I recall ever being asked by an app if if I wanted to install it for the current user only. So, it was truly "out of sight, out of mind."
Thank you MartinR. I just decided to take your advice and leave well enough alone.
How to switch administrator and user account or move apps in one to the other on iMac?
