You Need a New Admin Account on Your Mac

Photo: Margirita_Puma (Shutterstock)

Some Mac users have a single administrator account on their machines. There’s nothing wrong with that if you’re the only person who uses the computer. If others have access your Mac, though, you should create a second account for added security. Here’s why.

When you share an admin account with others, there is nothing stopping them from creating a new user account and removing admin privileges from your own account. You can see this issue play out in this Reddit post, where the poster’s ex made themselves the admin and blocked the OP from a host of actions on the Mac. As long as they know your account password, they can make themselves the admin on your machine.

The simplest way to prevent this situation is to create a separate admin account only you can access. First, click the Apple logo in the top-left corner of your screen and select System Settings or System Preferences.

Now go to Users & Groups. Click the Add Account or the + icon and make a new account. You should use a secure password for this account and store it in a password manager so you don’t forget it. Don’t forget to select Administrator from the drop-down menu next to New Account. When you’re done, select Create User.

This will make a fresh admin account on the computer. The next step is to switch to the new admin account. Click the Apple logo in the top-left corner and select Lock Screen. Select Switch User, enter the password, and log in. Go to Users & Groups in System Settings again, select your old user account, and uncheck Allow this user to administer this computer.

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You can now safely log out of your admin account and use your old account as you always would. If someone else uses your machine, they won’t be able to demote you to a user account with fewer privileges.

For convenience’s sake, you can also make your Mac automatically log in to your main account. You can find this option in System Settings/Preferences > Users & Groups. On macOS Ventura, select the account from the Automatically log in as... menu. On older versions of macOS, you can click Login Options and enable Automatic Login.

This option will be unavailable if you’ve enabled FileVault encryption on your Mac. We don’t recommend disabling that option because it’s an important security feature. You’re better off logging in manually—it only takes a second or two.

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