Question :

I have imported all data from our old Mac to our new Mac, but the on the new Mac I want to use a different account name than the one that was coupled to the account on the old Mac. To do so, I have to change the Account Name, the Short Name and the Home Folder Name.

Changing the Account Name and the Home Folder Name is easy, but if I only change those two, things get messed up completely…

I can’t find a way to change the Short Name also.

How do I do that ?

Answer :

It’s rather easy to change the account’s naming in OSX 10.8 Mountain Lion, but… exactly as you mentioned : if don’t do it exactly right, you’ll screw up your Mac completely…

Here’s a step-by-step guide to do it :

1- first & foremost : BACKUP ! make sure you start by making a complete backup of your Mac before you start this action ! (the easiest way to make backup is of course a Time Machine backup)

2- login on your Mac using an administrator account different than the account you want to change the name of (if you don’t already have such an second and/or administrator account on your Mac, just create one in the “Users & Groups” section of the System Preferences – you can delete it after the name change is complete)

3- now, go to Apple –> System Preferences –> Show All –> System –> Users & Groups

4- then, in the Users & Groups window that opens, click on the padlock icon (in the bottom left corner)

5- then, select the account you want to change in the list on the left side, and in the Password-tab on the right, at “Full Name:” type the new account name you want to use for this user account

6- then, right-click (or press CTRL while clicking) on the account you want to change in the list on the left side, and a small popup will appear saying “Advanced Options” ; click that

7- in the Advanced Options pull down window, read the WARNING first, then at “Account Name:” type the Short Name you want to use for the renamed account (let’s assume you want to rename to “newshortname” ; this name can’t have spaces in it !) and press OK

8- then, go to your Desktop, and press the SHIFT + CMD + C key-combo (or in the Finder go to Go –> Computers)

9- in the Finder window that opens, go to [Mac Hard Disk] –> Users and then select the (account) folder that has the old name you want to get rid of, and click on it’s name so it will light up ; then replace that name with the new Short Name you want to use (so “newshortname” as we called it before)

Note : it’s hard to believe it’s so easy to change these folder names, as you can mess up your entire Mac in doing so…

10- then go back to Apple –> System Preferences –> Users & Groups, and right-click (CTRL-click) on the account name you’ve just changed a few moments ago, and select “Advanced Options”

11- then, in the “Advanced Options” pulldown menu go to “Home Directory:” and change the “/Users/oldshortname” to “/User/newshortname” and press OK

12- now go to Apple –> Log Out… and login using the renamed account (if you want you can now delete the temporary Administrator-account you had made in System Preferences –> Users & Groups)

That’s it…

Enjoy !