Given all this, I decided that it was time for each child to have her own account. And, of course, each wants a different desktop picture, a different account name and photo, and so on. They both also use the same online-homework system, so sharing an account means lots of logging in and out of accounts in Safari.
Now that the kids are getting older (both are in elementary school), each wants to use apps with her own settings. This setup worked pretty well until the past year or so. That account had parental controls enabled, and it was configured for really young kids who did little beyond using a few apps aimed at preschoolers and kinders. It’s just not that common of a task.įor years, our kids have shared a single account (“Kids Account”) on the family Mac. But until recently, one thing I’d never tried to do, let alone written about, was duplicate an existing user account. I was also one of the people behind the ChangeShortName utility. The first time was likely a 2002 Macworld article (no longer available online) explaining how to move your user folder to a different drive more recently, I did a tutorial on changing your short username. Over the years, I’ve written a lot about OS X user accounts.
