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I have asked this before ..

May 3, 2013 8:02 PM



in here, https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4963947?answerId=21766050022#21766050022 but I still have the original apple setting for all the files on the computer ..../users/apple/...


My question is how do I change that to .../users/myname/...? At the moment the system will not allow any change to the apple name. I seem to remember that before it went in for repair, the only significant thing that was with the users directory tree was my name! In the users directory now the apple folder is there as is Deleted Users, Guest, Shared and My Name. But to get to the files under my name is a wee bit strange. It seems to me that the apple folder is a default route. I notice in the Users and Groups in Preferences I am the only one there. I suspect that during the messing about when trying to get just me as the only user setup, I may well have deleted the apple bit, but it seems to have deleted it in name only!


Is there any way, with out going in to the bowels of the thing, that I can revert to users/myname/... as the main route for this machine?


Thanks


altv

iMac (21.5-inch Mid 2011), OS X Mountain Lion

Posted on May 3, 2013 12:48 PM

Reply
21 replies

May 3, 2013 2:37 PM in response to altv

HI,


When you first set up your Mac you are encouraged to put in your Name.

This creates the Account on the Mac and it is always an Admin Account.


It then becomes the only Account in /Users and the Full name you used is contracted to become the shortname and appears under the Little House icon.


Of course you can use any other "Name" and create an Admin User that is not a named person.


Then in System Preferences you can add more Mac User Accounts.

These can also be Admin, or Standard or Managed (Parental Controls turned on)


One of these can be set up to open Automatically and avoid the Login Screen to chose which account you Login under.

It would appear you have the "Apple" one set to do so.


Pic showing a mixture of Admin, Standard and Managed Accounts

User uploaded file




User uploaded file
10:37 PM Friday; May 3, 2013


 iMac 2.5Ghz 5i 2011 (Mountain Lion 10.8.3)
 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
 Couple of iPhones and an iPad
"Limit the Logs to the Bits above Binary Images."  No, Seriously

May 3, 2013 3:11 PM in response to Ralph-Johns-UK

Ralph


I think the problem lies in the fact that when the machine came back from the repair, it was set as apple with an apple password. Presumably so that the repairer could check everything out and make sure the machine operated as the designer intended, which it certainly didn't do before!! Now I can not change apple and every thing goes through it. The folder under my name has what I copied across from the apple folder. All I want to do is to get rid of the apple folder and use just my name folder. I cannot change the apple name of the folder so I appear to be left with it. As I said earlier, it seems that the apple folder is the default route that everything takes on this machine and cannot be changed. Equally so, in the users and groups window that you show, on this machine there is only my name and Guest, so I can see no logical reason why the apple folder is still there! Right clicking does not bring up the Move to Trash option, and in the info window apple name is greyed out. I am stymied!!

To me, this is silly, and I would like to get my name folder to be the default route to operate under.


Thanks

altv

May 3, 2013 4:25 PM in response to altv

Can you explain what you mean by "default route" being the Apple folder? If I understand correctly, Apple created a test account to check the machine. You tried to remove it and only deleted the account, not the home directory for "Apple". I am concerned about this "default route". Can you use the machine without every seeing the Apple folder? Or does this folder interfere with your normal operation. I can tell you how to remove it, but I want to make sure that process won't do any damage first.

May 4, 2013 1:26 AM in response to etresoft

etresoft


What I mean is that the apple route, ...users/appple/... is the first one to come up if I want to save anything and I have to sort through to get my Folder to use. I thought it would have been easy just to delete the "rogue" apple folder, or that maybe it would have gone when I deleted the acount. This is not the case. What I am after is to make my folder the one that everything goes through. Alas, as you can see, the only account available to me is that shown on 11:19 post above and nothing to work on as far as the apple folder is concerned. As far as using tha apple folder, that always comes up first, again presumably because it starts with a.


The link from Imp68 worries me a wee bit since being relatively new to Apple, I am loathe to play around with inner machinations of the system. The business about the short name is a little bit unknown to me. My name comes up as T... V...., it has not been automatically shortened! At least not as far as I can see.


I took a backup before the machine went in for it's transplant, but was loathe to use the backup I took because of the myriad of problems I had with it from the first time I took it out of the box. Apple finally agreed that it was a roguee machine and had to replace the HDD and the logic board. It was possible there were problems with the system files, so I just put back in my documents etc. and left the OSx as ther repair people left it at.


Thanks for coming back.


altv

May 4, 2013 4:25 AM in response to Imp68

Imp68


I don't understand that! In the users folder, there are, as seperate entities, apple, Deleted Users, Guest, Shared and T... V..... If apple is my shortened name, then how do I change that to either t... or v....? To answer your other point, yes, the data is coming up under apple, but it, the folder, bears no relationship to me! Effectively, I now have two Folders, apple and T... V.... that have the same information since I copied the details from the apple folder to the T... V.... folder. See my screenshot in my 8:50pm posting above.


Thanks for your input.


altv

May 4, 2013 7:58 AM in response to etresoft

etresoft


That window has a series of details that may be of use to you in getting to the bottom of the problem.


User ID. 501

Group. Staff

Account Name. my surname but all lower case

Login Shell. /bin/bash

Home Directory. /Users/apple

UUID. loads of alpha numeric details

Aliases. my e mail address

and com.apple.idms.appleid.prd..........


The Home Directory seems to be the root of the problem that I need to sort out. But, will this have a detrimental affect on the running of the various programmes i hev running on the machine at the moment?


Hope the above helps you.


Thanks


altv

May 4, 2013 12:15 PM in response to altv

Hi,


etresoft knows more about this side of things than I do.


He seems to have been aware to the Fact that the shortname is or has become "apple".


I will leave you in his capable hands about the possibilities of changing the shortname.



User uploaded file
8:15 PM Saturday; May 4, 2013


 iMac 2.5Ghz 5i 2011 (Mountain Lion 10.8.3)
 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
 Couple of iPhones and an iPad
"Limit the Logs to the Bits above Binary Images."  No, Seriously

May 4, 2013 12:39 PM in response to altv

That is certainly odd, but fixable.


First, use the Users & Groups System Preferences page to create a new user account. In the "New Account" field, make sure it says "Administrator". Then fill in the rest with the full name "Administrator" and account name "admin". Log out. Don't use fast user switching. Do a real Log Out. Log back in as the Administrator. Open some applications. Save some files. Make sure the Administrator account is working properly.


Once you are happy that the Administrator account works the way you wish your account did, we can use it to fix your old account. Go back to Users & Groups. Select your old account. Go back to Advanced options. Next to Home directory where it now says "/Users/apple", click the "Choose" button. Navigate to the directory it should be and click "Open". If your current Account Name value is "smith", then the Home directory should now read "/Users/smith". Click the OK button.


Log out of Administrator and log into your own account. How does it work now? If it doesn't work perfectly, reply back and we can use this new Administrator account to fix it. Ideally, you should keep this Administrator account around just for situations like this. You may even want to eventually downgrade your primary account to "Standard" for increaesd security.

May 4, 2013 3:09 PM in response to altv

If you see all your expected data when you're logged into your account, then all you need to do is follow the instructions in the very first link I posted to change the name of the apple folder.


I'm not sure why Ralph is giving credit to someone else for realizing your home folder was "apple" since that was actually me. It was obvious after your second image was posted, so I'm not sure where the confusion comes in with the others.


But, you may want to disregard my advice and pay attention to only etresoft, just to keep things simple. Too many cooks in the kitchen etc...

I have asked this before ..

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