Can I just delete my old account?

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Level 1

133 points

Can I just delete my old account?

After I migrated my old iMac11,2 to my new iMac13.2 my wife took the old iMac. Both iMacs are running OS X 10.8.3. I migrated her clunky old Macbook to the old iMac. All her stuff appears to be there and working fine. Now there are two administrator accounts, my old one and hers. I want to delete all the old apps under my account and also the data, along with my account. If I delete the account will that get rid of the apps and data? Or must I log into my account and get rid of everything first?

iMac, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2)

Posted on Apr 7, 2013 8:02 AM

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Answer 1

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mende1

Level 10

93,538 points

Apr 7, 2013 8:16 AM in response to DesertRatR

It depends. There are two Applications folder: /Applications, and ~/Applications, being ~ your user folder. Apps stored in ~/Applications will be removed after deleting that user (moreover, you won't be able to access to them from your new user).

Apps stored in /Applications won't be removed after deleting the user, so you will have to uninstall the applications manually

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Answer 2

Apr 7, 2013 8:19 AM in response to mende1

~/Applications does not exist on a standard OS X install. It's not there unless you've created it.

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Answer 3

mende1

Level 10

93,538 points

Apr 7, 2013 8:20 AM in response to William Lloyd

Are you completely sure? It came with all my Mac OS X installations (Mac OS X Snow Leopard, OS X Lion and Mountain Lion). Maybe it was created in old Mac OS X versions and now it's not being created

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Answer 4

Csound1

Level 9

59,973 points

Apr 7, 2013 8:49 AM in response to mende1

Usually it is not there unless created by the user, note the word 'usually'

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Answer 5

DesertRatR Author

Level 1

133 points

Apr 7, 2013 9:09 AM in response to mende1

Hmmmm .... there is no ~/applications folder. So manual removal is it.

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Answer 6

Eric Root

Level 10

684,027 points

Apr 7, 2013 11:35 AM in response to Csound1

My 2008 iMac has a user Applications folder that happened when I installed 10.8. Our 2011 MacBook Pro doesn't have one. There seems to be some inconsistency. 😁

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Answer 7

Csound1

Level 9

59,973 points

Apr 7, 2013 11:38 AM in response to Eric Root

My 2009 does, and it was there under Lion and Snow Leopard as well, I made it under Snow Leopard and placed an app that was only for my use in it.

Eric Root wrote:

My 2008 iMac has a user Applications folder that happened when I installed 10.8. Our 2011 MacBook Pro doesn't have one. There seems to be some inconsistency. 😁

Hence my stress on the word 'usually' rather than always.

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