How do you disable the Guest User on the login screen?

Question

Atsudenki Author

Level 1

8 points

How do you disable the Guest User on the login screen?

How do you disable the Guest User account on the login screen?

Basically I got a brand new Macbook, but cannot for the life of me figure out how to get rid of the Guest User account.

Summary:

Macbook 2016
El Capitan 10.11.6
FileVault is Enabled
Find My Mac is Disabled
GuestUser under Users & Groups is set to Off

Attempted the following from another forum:

1. Make sure “Find My Mac” and Guest User are disabled, reboot;

2. Check whether System Integrity Protection is enabled or disabled by running: csrutil status at the Terminal.

3. If it says "System Integrity Protection status: enabled." proceed to 4.1,

4. if not, only do 4.4 and 4.7;

4.1. Reboot into "Recovery Mode": Shutdown and hold Command + R after pressing the power button;

4.2. Go into "Utilities > Terminal" and run the command: csrutil disable;

4.3. Reboot;

4.4. Open the Terminal and run: sudo touch /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/EFILogin.framework/Resources/EFIResourceBuild er.bundle/Contents/Resources, this will force the EFI login update;

4.5. Reboot(again) into "Recovery Mode": Shutdown and hold Command + R after pressing the power button;

4.6. Go into "Utilities > Terminal" and run the command: csrutil enable;

4.7. Reboot and it’s fixed!

4.8. Re enable “Find My Mac” as you wish.

MacBook, OS X El Capitan (10.11.6), null

Posted on Sep 18, 2016 8:57 PM

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Answer 1

Barney-15E

Level 10

122,306 points

Sep 19, 2016 4:51 AM in response to Atsudenki

FileVault is Enabled

Then you cannot disable that Guest user. It is there primarily in case you cannot unlock your hard drive. It provides a limited Safari capability so that you can access help services on the internet.

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Answer 2

Atsudenki Author

Level 1

8 points

Sep 19, 2016 6:54 AM in response to Barney-15E

Unfortunately, I don't think that is the case. I have a Macbook Air and Pro that have the exact same settings and do not have the Guest User listed on the login screen.

My gut feeling is that since it was a brand new Macbook with El Capitan, it comes enabled by default.

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Answer 3

Barney-15E

Level 10

122,306 points

Sep 19, 2016 6:45 PM in response to Atsudenki

Then there is something wrong with your other Macs.

FileVault will cause the Guest User to exist on the login page, but I think that is just the decryption login page.

Here is someone who sees what you do: https://derflounder.wordpress.com/2011/11/04/filevault-2-and-the-guest-user-acco unt/

I don't understand the contradiction of not signing into iCloud, but still somehow enabling Find My Mac. It is an iCloud service, so you would have to be signed in.

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Answer 4

Atsudenki Author

Level 1

8 points

Sep 20, 2016 8:52 PM in response to Barney-15E

I don't agree with your assessment.

Nonetheless the solution at least for me was to reinstall the O/S and make sure I answer the Find My Mac question with a no. With FileVault enabled, there is no Guest User at the login screen.

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Answer 5

Atsudenki Author

Level 1

8 points

Sep 26, 2016 4:11 PM in response to Atsudenki

A better solution is to perform the following:

disable the Guest User under Users & Groups
disable Find My Mac under iCloud
add a temporary user under Users & Groups
reboot
remove the temporary user (created in step #3) under Users & Groups
reboot

The Guest User should now be gone. Guessing that the Guest User was cached in the login screen until you forced the login screen to get updated.

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