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Managing Accounts on MacOS

This guide is for administrative staff who need to manage the logins on student employee workstations. It's best practice for each student employee to have their own login. Supervisors are responsible for managing these accounts as student employees are hired and terminated.

• Account Creation
• Password Change with the Student Employee
• Account Deletion
• Best Practices
  • Logging Out
  • Document sharing

Note: The instructions below are geared towards Mac OS Ventura (13) and higher.

Account Creation

1. Log into the computer using the admin account CUS created for you
2. Open System Settings
3. Navigate to Users & Groups
4. Click "Add Account"
5. Enter your password when prompted
6. Enter the student's ½ñÈÕ³Ô¹Ï username (the first part of their email) as the "Full Name". This will autopopulate the username. For example, if student Clark Kent's email is kentc@reed.edu, enter "kentc" as the full name.
7. Generate a placeholder password into the "password" and "verify" fields. Or, if the student is there with you, have them enter the password of their choosing.
8. Click Create User
9. Note: please do not give administrative privileges to student accounts. This should be reserved for administrative staff only.

Password Change with the Student Employee

1. Log into the account in which you'd like to change the password
2. Open System Settings
3. Navigate to Users & Groups
4. Click the "i" next to the user account
5. Click "Change Password"
6. Enter the placeholder password under "Old Password"
7. Have the student enter their new password under "new password" and verify"

Account Deletion

When a student is no longer employed in your office, their account should be deleted.

1. Ensure no data is needed from the student's account. If data needs to be preserved, one option is to copy it to /Users/Shared/ on the computer (anyone who logs into the computer will be able to access the files).
2. Log into the computer using the admin account CUS created for you
3. Open System Settings
4. Navigate to Users & Groups
5. Click "i" next to the account you'd like to delete.
6. Click "Delete Account"
7. Select "Delete Home Folder"
8. Click "Delete account" and enter the admin password when prompted

Best Practices

Logging Out

Please instruct student employees to log out of the computer at the end of their shift. If they don't log out, this may prevent other users from logging in.

Document Sharing

If student employees need to access shared files on the computer, they should be stored in /Users/Shared. From Finder, go to the Go menu > Computer. Navigate to Macintosh HD (or whatever the name of the hard drive is) > Users > Shared. Files stored in this folder are accessible to all users who sign into the computer.

Another option is for student employees to store files in a Shared Drive in Google. Contact cus@reed.edu if you need a shared drive for this purpose.