how to remove a shared computer

This worked for me, on macOS Sierra:

1. Restart Bonjour

- Click Launchpad in the Dock, then Other > Terminal

- In the Terminal window, enter the following:

sudo killall -m mDNSResponder

2. Restart Finder

- Hold down ctrl+alt and click the Finder icon in the Dock

- Select "Relaunch" from the drop-down list

Twitchly wrote:

Extinct computers, plus one mysteriously named "MacbookPro -1085," continue to show up.

Try this.

In Finder, choose Go > Connect to Server… (⌘K). If any of the extinct computers show up under Favorite Servers, remove them. Then, from the Recent Servers pop-up menu, choose "Clear recent servers…". Confirm.

(It may or it may not work, but there's no harm in trying.)

I clicked on the Apple Icon (top left), then System Preferences; Under "System" click on Users & Groups; Click the lock to make changes (enter password and it will unlock); Under "Other Users" I clicked what said Guest User: You will have the 2 choices, UNCLICK the bottom one that says Allow guest to connect to shared folders. Click the lock again to lock everything. My "shared computer" (where ever it came from) should be blank. I reclicked the "Allow guests…." and I didn't see the "shared computer" name that was there. SO hoepfully that will work. I just don't know how it got connected in the first place…. Hope this helps anyone else…

Try this: and then at the end physically turn computer off then on..

Mar 20, 2016 8:05 AM Re: how to remove a shared computerin response to wstoneburner

I've been working on removing an old HP computer and making only a little headway when I came across your suggestion and tried it. I was multi-tasking on my Macbook Pro and using my Mac and didn't want to meddle with the router physically until the Macbook Pro was finished with what I had it doing, so I decided to go ahead and try your suggestion.

The problem was this: I had an old HP computer visible on the Finder list at the left side of the window and wanted to remove it.

In a previous post, I came across the check/uncheck Bonjour computers suggestion in the Finder Preferences under the Sidebar menu and it would indeed 'hide' the HP but there was a new item which appeared with the word 'All' in it that came on in place of the HP item and I didn't want to see either.

As soon as I re-checked the Bonjour computers checkbox, the HP came back so I knew it was still present, just hidden and since I no longer use that computer, I wanted it gone for good.

Next, I saw the thread about toggling the File Share off then back on and voila! My HP is now gone off the Shared list in Finder and I can toggle Bonour computers on and off and HP is still gone. Yay! Thanks for the help wstoneburner and a few others who posted before yours which led me to your suggestion.

Hi, thank you for the tip but I was not able to get to see what you are describing.

I put my computers name in the search box and I did not see anything that says 'com.cloudd.deviceIdentifier'.

This is what I am trying to get rid of, which by now I now is my Xprint Server device.

Thank you.

Here's how I resolved it... and more importantly, what caused it.

Cause

A friend came over and connected to my network while I was using my machine. Their machine, rightly so, showed up in my Finder shares. During this time, I closed my laptop and it went to sleep -- remembering that it had shares. A little later I woke my laptop at a hotel, and knowing there was a network I didn't trust, I turned off Apple / Preferences... / Sharing, File Sharing before connecting. It wasn't until days later at home I noticed the ghost machines still in Finder with no way to delete them.

Solution

I went back into Apple / Preferences... / Sharing, File Sharing and turned ON File Sharing (the machines vanished), then I turned OFF File Sharing (they stayed vanished).

Suspicion

I believe this is an edge-case bug, where Finder does not check shares unless it is connected to a network, and if the File Sharing option is turned off while disconnected, it never polls (since 'obviously' you're not sharing anything) to remove stale entries. FYI, I have logged this as a bug with Apple, # 19977714. Again, still assuming this is what's happening, it seems that Finder should on either no network or discovering that option is off, remove all Shares and then it doesn't have to check anymore.

This does not work. I have some PCs I used to be on a network with but no longer work at that company. They still show up in my sidebar. Have tried killing Finder prefs, sidebar prefs and even killall Finder from Terminal. Of course if I uncheck show Bonjour computers from Finder prefs they go away but so do my local macs. If I recheck show Bonjour computers they all come back including the extinct PCs. I'm on 10.6.8 but have had these showing up under 10.6.7 as well....no way I see to make them go away. And yes I logged out after each attempt.

Same problem here. Extinct computers, plus one mysteriously named "MacbookPro -1085," continue to show up. I don't want to hide my actual networked Macs, so the "hide Bonjour computers" idea won't work for me. I just want to get rid of the clutter. Weird that Apple does't provide a way to do this.

Hey Guys. Here is what worked for me. I logged into my router and deleted the "unknown" computer that had been connected to my network. (All routers vary so you may want to consult with your provider on how to do this). I then disconnected the Ethernet cable from my computer and poof it was gone. I plugged it back in and it has not returned. The "unknown" computer is what my router called it although the sidebar listed as a PC with a string of lowercase characters and numbers. I use to let my landlord share my connection via Ethernet since he is right below me. So obviously that was the culprit. If you have ever had someone connected to your network or have connected to someone elses it appears it gets cached somewhere. In my case it appears to have been the router. I hope this has helped. God Bless.

...... I did a hard reset of my airport router and they all went away. Seems like this info is stored on the router and not the computer.

I had the same issue. My old iMac that I sold and is no longer in my office continued to show up in the Finder side bar of not just my new computer, but in all the computers around the office.

This is what worked for me to remove it. I disconnected the power cable to my router, disconnected the Ethernet cable from the router, and turn off WiFi on my computer. After reconnecting the cables to the router and turning WiFi back on, the old computer had finally disappeared from the shared computers in the sidebar of Finder, on all computers in the office.

This does indeed mean, that the info for the shared old computer was stored on the router and not the computer(s). I had been looking in the wrong place. I was ready to call Apple about this, this issue had been driving me crazy.

I tried all the tricks on this thread without success, but eventually solved it. I had about 8 variations on the name of the Mac Mini on our network: some were names I gave it, some were simply appended numbers to one of the names. Gumparker's solution of logging into the router made me realize that the ghost devices on the network were not part of a preference file on an individual computer -- indeed all three computers (two Mavericks and one Yosemite) on the network showed the same shared ghost devices. Must be the router storing the names of the phantom computers. I have a FiOS router, plus an Apple Airport Extreme connected to FiOs via ethernet, and also an old Airport Time Capsule for backups only (no wi-fi) daisy chained off the Airport Extreme, so there were three possible culprits.

I unplugged both the FiOs router and the Airport Extreme, waited a minute, then plugged the FiOS router back in; after it was back online, I plugged the Airport Extreme back in. Partial success! Some of the newer ghost names went away, but four of the older ones remained. Must be the old Airport Time Capsule. I unplugged it, waited, then plugged it back in. Success! All the phantom names on the network are now gone.

I did solve this for myself. Obviously, we have learned that solutions are always specific to the user and their own networks.

Here was my issue, to clarify. My shared folder in the FINDER window kept loading up new versions of my laptop (macbook pro). I reviewed tons of solutions in these blogs and could not believe some of the solutions. Most of these had absolutely nothing to do with networking, but were more about throwing darts in the dark and praying it worked. LOL

So here's a networking solution.
1. In the finder window, i went to APPLICATIONS

2. I went to UTILITIES

3. I opened the AIRPORT UTILITY

4. I CLICKED on my AIRPORT EXTREME

5. I CLICKED edit

6. I CLICKED on NETWORK

7. I noticed I had reserved an IP ADDRESS for my macbook pro that I was seeing all the versions for in the FINDER window

8. I also CLICKED on the NETWORK OPTIONS button in the same NETWORK view and noticed my lease was set to 90 days

9. I think changing the lease to 1 day would have solved this issue and after a reset of the router, would have made the versions of my macbook pro go away. And moving forward, I would have only seen versions pop up, if I rebooted my laptop in that 24 hour period, but the version/s would have been gone the next day.

10. BUT.....for my solution. I just decided to remove my macbook pro from the DHCP RESERVATIONS. Specifically, I CLICKED on my macbook pro IN the DHCP RESERVATIONS and then CLICKED the minus sign for delete.

11. I CLICKED update and SOLVED!

This is a TRUE NETWORK SOLUTION. None of that deleting plist junk. LOL 😁

The PROBLEM to reiterate, is that your WIFI router is always setting up that reserved DHCP IP Address for your macbook. And I am positive, you can get away with just setting the DHCP LEASE to 1 day. But I went one step further and deleted my reserved IP Address for my macbook pro. I set that reserve up many years ago and just forgot it was there.

I had the same problem. I didn't recognise one user under the 'shared' heading in Finder and after some research this method worked in removing unknown users with peculiar names:

go on system preferences

click on the 'sharing' folder

select the second option in the list on the left panel (file sharing)

and under 'shared folders:' NOT 'users:' click the folder and select the '-' option underneath this box to delete it for public sharing.

i don't need to share anything so i was happy to delete this and when u go on finder, you should only recognise networks/ computer names which are currently using your wifi (UK 'Sky' provider for me).

I'm new to mac's so I'm just getting used to this whole idea, but i love it. hope this helped 🙂

You all are making this way to complicated. In the sidebar in your Finder window, under your "Shared" group, if you see the name of another computer, the way to remove it is to go onto the OTHER computer and remove the option to "share" the files and folders.

I recently transferred from and iMac to a Macbook Pro. I had connected the two via firewire to transfer all of my files/settings/etc. from my iMac to my Macbook Pro. After wiping my iMac, I noticed my Macbook Pro still showed up in my iMac Finder Sidebar. This is after reformatted the HD, and reinstalling OS X. The fix was to remove the "sharing" option from the device that is doing the sharing, not the device that is the recipient of the shared content.

Anyway, I know I'm a nobody here, but thought I'd share how I fixed this.