When using CTRL-Cmd-Q or clicking a user from the fast user switcher dropdown menu, is there a way to speed up or eliminate the animation the occurs (it's a rotating box) as the action complete to the password prompt? I saw this post on speeding up animation for spaces, however it doesn't cover the fast user switch.

I have a Mac with an account shared by multiple users. The default login screen behavior seems to be to select the last user that logged out for the next login. I would like to change that so that upon bootup, or upon any account logout, a configured default user account would be selected for the next login (of course that another account can always be selected for login, but some of my users are naive and might be confused to see an unexpected user for login and not know how to change to the default account we share). P.S. I recognize that this isn't an ideal security model, so I don't need advice about that, since it's what we have to live with, thanks.

I posted this in the Apple Discussions forums, but have yet to get an answer that applies to the depth of which this situation currently exists. My Mac's hard drive (running Mojave) suffered some corruption recently, and I found myself unable to boot into the system. I am able to boot into Recovery Mode, and my intent was to rescue the important data sitting in /Users/(my username), but to my surprise, the entire /Users/ folder is *just not there* when I try to access it via Terminal. Steps taken: 1. Boot into Recovery Mode. 2. Open up Terminal. 3. Navigate to /Volumes/(my OS drive name)/ 4. Type ls to see directory tree. I see every other folder I am expecting to see (I think), except for /Users/. It simply is not there. What I have tried: 1. Navigating to literally every partition and folder I can think of to find where /Users/ might be instead. 2. Doing "chflags nohidden" on the drive does nothing. 3. I don't believe I have FileVault on, so I don't think anything in that category would apply to my situation. I can only come up with two possible conclusions: 1. The hard drive corruption annihilated ONLY the /Users/ directory (unlikely, I assume???) 2. Recovery Mode is hiding /Users/ in a way that I cannot figure out, and this is apparently not documented anywhere on the internet. I have seen other sites/posts talking about /Users/ being hidden, but they were not referring to situations similar to mine, and were resolved with simple (somewhat obvious) steps. They were not like what I am experiencing. In the meantime, preparing for the worst, I have ordered an external drive enclosure so that I can pull the drive out of my computer and view its contents on another computer. I am very hesitant to reinstall MacOS right now, because IF /Users/ has been compromised in the corruption, I don't want to do anything further that will prevent it from being recovered somehow. In other words, I am trying not to write any new data to the drive at all. Thanks for any help or suggestions in advance.

**Hardware:** I have a 2014 iMac 5K. It's got 24GB of RAM and a 2TB SATA SSD I installed myself last summer. Full specs here: https://support.apple.com/kb/SP707?locale=en_US **Software:** Catalina 10.15.7 is installed. I have a total of three user accounts set up: one for my wife, and two for me (one for home, one for work). Her account is signed in under her Apple ID, my two accounts are both signed in under my Apple ID. **The Problem:** When I first boot up the machine, it runs perfectly. Boots up very fast, accounts log in fast, everything runs quite smoothly. I use it for basic web stuff, email, iMessage, some Creative Cloud work, text-based work. All of this works very well, even more demanding stuff like Final Cut Pro and transcoding the occasional video. But over a period of 3 or 4 days, even under very light use, things just get slower and slower. When I say "things" I mean specifically graphics on screen -- Mission Control and Fast User Switching become incredibly slow. Windows respond slower and slower to resize, lagging behind the cursor as if the machine is struggling to draw the graphics. When it gets bad enough, it can't even keep up with *highlighting text* in some apps and in web pages. If I log out of other accounts and pare it down to one, it seems to relieve the pressure a bit, but if I keep logging in and out of user accounts without restarting, it just slows down more and more over a few days until, again, it's basically unusable. Eventually I just have to restart -- at least once a week and sometimes more than that. Then it's very fast again until a few days later. In all of this, Activity Monitor looks basically normal as far as I can tell. The only thing that stands out is WindowServer, which will spike up 70-100% and not really settle down much below 50%. But the fans never go crazy, the CPU load never looks bad, the memory pressure stays low (again, there's 24GB of RAM). This issue has been with me for a couple of years now. I hoped that pulling out the Fusion Drive and replacing it with a pure SSD would help, but no such luck. I hoped Catalina would solve it, but not at all. What's so vexing about this is that this iMac runs SO well when I first restart it, but I can't keep it working that way unless I were to (I guess) run a single user account which I don't want to do. I have worked with separate home and work Mac user accounts for probably 8 years now, and never had issues with it, even on much more modest hardware. I would also add this: I'm seeing a similar problem on my 2020 MacBook Air under Big Sur. Multiple users + staying logged in for a while = the machine slows down over the course of a week or so. This makes me wonder if there's just some inherent bugginess in the way MacOS handles multiple users these days. Even if nobody has a solution to this, I'd love to hear about it if anyone else is seeing multiple user issues in MacOS these days. **edit:** Per @Gilby's suggestion that this might be related to being logged into two user accounts with the same Apple ID, I've spent a week logged into only one of said accounts. Indeed, the severe slowdowns I was seeing have *not* manifested after a week of uptime working this way. So, I have to conclude that the issue is related to the "two user accounts, same Apple ID" setup. It's a real shame, as I'd been working this way for some years without issue until I think Mojave or Catalina when it started to cause difficulties. I'm leaving this question up, for now, in case anyone has further insights or workarounds.

I've been doing a Jamf now roll out, but have mucked up the user account by using this terminal command:

sudo dseditgroup -o edit -d UserName -t user admin

Which basically made the admin account switch to a standard user account. I now need to revert back the standard user account to admin, but am struggling to find the terminal command that works to revert back.

How do you completely disable a local account on macOS Sequoia so it cannot login at all: * From the login screen * Over SSH (if that is enabled) * From the command-line (e.g., using sudo -u _user_ -i) In the past I asked this question: * How to disable account on OS X Mavericks The solution then was to set the account's login shell to /usr/bin/false but this no longer prevents login from the login screen. There are also suggestions to hide the account using sudo dscl . create /Users/UserName IsHidden 1 But apparently, it is still possible to enter the username manually on the login screen. What is the correct way to completely disabling an account without deleting it?

In Sequoia 15.1 (but looks an old known issue). Using the GUI, I created a group to bind it to a folder and an application. On both, this happens: I searched the web but some solutions look very risky as they issue long command line strings in a recursive manner applied to the filesystem ([e.g. Apple post on issue](https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6729832?sortBy=rank)) . If solution using this way is far from complicated, how would you, using command line (chown, chmod,chgrp?): 1. Bind (append) a group to a folder or app **without overwriting current users/groups**. 2. Touch/change just the group/user permissions on that folder or app (**leaving alone other users/groups on same app/folder**).

I use multiple user accounts on my Mac (For security purposes, make sensitive/private information physically inaccessible in certain contexts). If I start and shutdown the computer in a normal single-user flow, everything works fine. But if I am logged in with both user accounts at the same time, i.e. I switch account without logging out first, then I am unable to log out from any account. I can switch fine between each logged in account; but logging out, and therefore also shutdown/restart doesn't work. The screen goes black, and the computer just hangs. No keyboard or mouse interaction have any observable effect. I am left with a forced shutdown by holding the power button. I have not yet tried making an SSH connection from a third computer; which I guess could help identify the cause of the problem; but I don't know what to look for either. I assume that it's some deadlock in a program that is running once for each user account, but how do I determine which?

I'm trying to figure out how to launch a GUI application as another user that's logged in interactively, in that user's graphical session. For example, say I have two users, foo and bar. Both are logged in, but the current interactive user is foo. I'd like to launch Calculator.app as user "bar", so that when I fast user switch to bar, I find the Calculator window is open in bar's session. Here's what I've tried that doesn't work: sudo -u bar /Applications/Calculator.app/Contents/MacOS/Calculator This launches Calculator.app as bar, but the window opens in foo's graphical session. sudo -u bar osascript -e "tell application \"Calculator\" to activate" Same effect. sudo -u bar open "/Applications/Calculator.app" Launches Calculator as foo, not bar. launchctl asuser [uid of bar] [any of the above commands] Same effect. Is there any way to accomplish this? I'm willing to entertain all manner of possible solutions, including bash scripting, AppleScript, writing a Core Foundation or Cocoa program, and so on. In my situation, any program or script could execute as any user, including root. Note: I'm aware that it's possible using remote Apple Events, but I can't use that since in the situation I'm trying to do this I have no guarantee that "Remote Apple Events" will be enabled in Sharing preferences. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

In macOS Catalina, I want to specifically set a different (and longer) password for unlocking FileVault (e.g. when I first turn my MacBook Pro on) vs. a shorter password to use in more casual contexts like unlocking after sleep or when prompted for the admin user password. Is this possible? Usually, people have wanted the opposite . But in Catalina I've tried changing it to be different in both System Preferences > Users & Groups > Change Password... and System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Change Password... and it makes them both sync up in either case. I remember in older versions of macOS I would have to enter a different password for FileVault vs. your user password (if they were different). I'm wanting this distinction back. My user account is the default and only administrator in the system. Is there a Terminal command to specify user password as distinct from FileVault password?

I need to navigate a site that makes use of javascript that checks for user agent and only permits IE9.0 (don't ask). I am using safari and can set IE 9 in the user agent submenu of the develop menu. However, when the site directs me to another page in its collection, an exception is thrown because the new page sees I am using Safari. Reseting the user agent in the develop menu does not work because the page reloads as a safari user agent. Yes I edited the com.apple.Safari plist to include the following item: Key: CustomUserAgent class: String value: Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; MSIE 9.0; Windows NT 6.1; Trident/5.0) But safari deletes that entry every time it opens a new tab/window and reverts to default! The plist reverts back to 'normal'. Is there a way to make this change permanent?

Before upgrading to Mavericks, I had a "Sharing only" account called "Shared" with a password, which I used to allow other computers to connect to my Mac. However, since upgrading to Mavericks, this account no longer appears in the "Users & Groups" System Preferences pane. I believe this is because it conflicted with the built-in "Shared" folder in /Users/Shared, so Mavericks probably had trouble with this account when upgrading OS X. However, the account itself still works, with my old password. Is there a way to delete this account, even if it doesn't appear in "Users & Groups", without deleting the /Users/Shared folder (which is separate; the folder is part of OS X, and my "Sharing only" account has no Home folder).

After a clean install of Sequoia (15.2) I am adding my user accounts. Due to other systems on my home network (and wanting to use NFS) I want to use specific UID's for the new accounts. This is a supported option on OSX - just create the account, then choose advanced and it is possible to set the UID's that I want to use. The problem is that the action of creating the account creates the home directory (/Users/xyz) using the initial UID (501, 502, 503, ...). I realize that I could just chown the files however due to SIP, I don't trust that that will work correctly. Instead my procedure is that: * After creating the accounts. * I reboot into recovery mode (to prevent SIP getting in the way). * Open a terminal * Execute rm -rf /Users/user1 /Users/user2 .... * Reboot * Log in as each user to recreate the home directories with the correct file ownerships. I realize that that is a convoluted process, however it seems to work / works for me. My question is: Are there any other locations where OSX writes user specific files outsize of /Users during user account creation? I ask because, I know other unix systems sometimes write files for things like crontabs, mail queues, lock files, etc and I want to check to make sure I have the correct ownership on all such files.

I have a Macbook Pro M1 running Sequoia 15.1.1. I only have one user installed on my Mac, and this user suddenly seems to have lost its admin status. Looking in system prefs shows that the user is now *"standard"*. I have no clue how this could have happened. I did not try to rename my user, or anything like that. I presume this would work: 1. Erase the Macbook completely 2. Reinstall the system 3. Create a new admin user and log in 4. Reimport the old user from Time Machine backup with Migration Assistant 5. Give back the privileges using the newly created admin 6. Keep both admin accounts for safe measure Is there a way to create a new admin from my current state or a shortcut to getting my user re-added to the admin group membership?

My password won't work. I am dyslexic. I have a Macbook Retina 12". It has a broken 'top case' which means different combinations of modifier keys are regularly enabled, namley the shift key. I have adopted workarounds and software utilities to use it for the past few years. (i.e. I usually hold down the Option key to bypass safe mode login at startup) Filevault is not enabled. I have double checked this using diskutil apfs list Currently my login password is not recognised. This may be because of capitalisation, but I have tried external keyboards and lots of messing around, and have decided to reset the password after weeks of trying things. I can boot into internet recovery mode only. (local recovery mode is inaccessible to me because of keys stuck on) In internet recovery mode, in Terminal, I run RESETPASSWORD (caps seems to be accepted in terminal) and the password reset tool opens. I can see 7 (seven) volumes, and when I select all/any of them, and press 'next' the message: 'There are no users on this volume to reset password for' is displayed. Any help appriciated with next steps! I am unable to run disk repair also. The volumes are: VM, Preboot, transfere (spelled incorrectly), Recovery, Update, Update, bedo - Data,

In a script, how can I check if user "Bill" is a member of the admin group (group 80)? I plan to use this in a script to check if he is and if he is not, make him an admin user.

I recently transferred the profile I use from my old Mac to a new one. Thanks to *Migration Assistant* and Thunderbolt everything went smoothly and fast. That is until I realised all the "garbage" that went along. When I checked through terminal what the root folder (that is ~/) contained with (ls -la), I saw that all the hidden files went along. That is probably expected. And I don't seem to have the choice to transfer just the data that is contained in the folders/directories of ~/ (that is, the content of Desktop, Documents, etc.), but not the content of ~/Library and other stuff I might not be aware of. Therefore I decided to erase the profile and do the transfer manually, but I soon had 2 main issues: 1. I can manage to transfer some data, but not other (i.e., Photos Library.photoslibrary, no matter what I did even following this Apple KB ) 2. Some serious "garbage" was transferred too that I could not locate after the deletion of the profile no matter what I did (see this SE thread for that issue and what I ended up doing). I guess that the issue resulting from point 1. comes from the fact that although the profile names are the same in one computer and the other, their IDs or fingerprint, or whatever does not match and therefore prohibits the transfer (it can also be because I obviously lack some knowledge). Therefore, my questions are: - Does *Migration Assistant* allow, in one way or another, to choose what data is transferred from a User profile? - If this is not possible, is there another way to transfer the data without getting blocked (like what happened with Photos Library.photoslibrary)? ---- *Systems used* - "Old" computer: macOS Sonoma 14.6.1, 2.8 GHz, Quad-Core Intel Core i7, 16 GB RAM - "New" computer: macOS Sonoma 14.6.1, Apple M3 Max, 128 GB RAM ---- P.S.: Transferring the User Profiles with Thunderbolt the nearly 2 TB of data from the "old" computer took 2-3 hours with Migration Assistant. Transferring <100 GB of data from one profile to another by dragging and dropping took also 2-3 hours. The difference is striking!

Running a MacBook Pro 2016, MacOS Monterey v 12.7.6. I need to add a username with admin privileges to allow that user to run a specific program, VeraCrypt, as explained here . In summary, one adds this line to the sudoers user section:

your-non-admin-username ALL = (ALL) /Applications/VeraCrypt.app/Contents/MacOS/VeraCrypt

The username has a space in it, like (not the real username) "Clark K". I tried entering this:

Clark K ALL = (ALL) /Applications/VeraCrypt.app/Contents/MacOS/VeraCrypt

When I do this, Visudo gives me a syntax error message without specifying what the syntax problem is. I am guessing it has to do with the two-word username. How do I deal with this? I have command line experience in Linux, but getting under the hood of the Mac is new to me. Thanks in advance!

I had a mac mini server with OSX server. The profile I user on my iMac was created on the server, and some groups where on the server, which was also a server for TM backups. For now, the user on the iMac is Admin, Managed, Mobile. The server died recently (in fact, with the different downgrades of the server App by Apple, at the end it was just serving files), but the user on the iMac is still locked to it. For example, I can't change password anymore... What can I do to transform the managed account into a normal independent account on the iMac?

Currently, it seems to default alphabetically, so 'Adam' would be default rather than 'Eve.', but I prefer the 'Eve' as the default user. Currently, you have to press Escape, cancelling out of 'Adam' (for example), click focus on 'Eve' and then enter password. I would have hoped MacOS would offer an elegant solution, but I have not yet found it. I hope to power on or reboot, then the login screen defaults to 'Eve,' and all I need to do is enter the password rather than select an account that isn’t Alphabetically sorted first in the list. Is there a method for specifying the default user on the MacOS login screen?