How to Add or Remove Administrators on Mac

If you use your Mac for non-personal use, you may need to set up additional administrative users on your account at some point. And in some cases, you may need to remove users who previously had certain privileges on your device.

Fortunately, Apple lets you do both without having to stress too much about it. You can also perform some operations in more than one way.

We’ll show you how to add or remove administrators to optimize your Mac. These tips will work regardless of whether you have an iMac, MacBook Air, or MacBook Pro.

How to Add Mac Administrators Using System Preferences

The easiest way to add a new administrator to your Mac is to go into your System Preferences. You can access this by clicking the Apple logo in the upper left corner and selecting System Preferences from the drop-down menu.

After doing that, follow these steps to complete the admin setup process.

Stage 1: In the second row in the dark gray section, select Users & Groups.

Step 2: Go to the lower left corner of the window where you will see a lock. Move your cursor here and click the padlock symbol.

Stage 3: Enter your administrator username and password. Then press Unlock or hit Enter.

Step 4: Navigate to the + button that you will find under the white box on the left.

Step 5: Before filling in the details in the next window, open the dropdown next to New Account and select Admin.

Step 6: Fill in the remaining boxes and click the Create User button.

When you create a new administrator, the box next to ‘Allow user to manage this computer’ should already be checked. If not, you can do it yourself. All you have to do is click on the new manager and tick the box.

Removing Mac Administrators Using System Preferences

At some point you may need to remove an administrator who previously had access to your Mac. If you want to do this using System Preferences, the process is pretty straightforward. All you have to do is follow the steps listed below.

Stage 1: Go to the Apple logo in the top left and click it.

Step 2: Select System Preferences from the drop-down menu.

Stage 3: Go to Users & Groups.

Step 4: Click on the padlock in the lower left corner.

Step 5: Enter your admin username and password and press Unlock or hit Enter.

Step 6: In the white box, navigate to the section titled Other Users.

Step 7: Select the account you want to remove.

Step 8: Click the – button at the bottom of this window.

On the next page, you will see a window asking if you want to save the parent folder to a disk image, leave it as is, or delete it. Make your selection and then press Delete User.

How to Remove Users in Mac Terminal

You can also remove users from your Mac using Terminal on your device. These steps will show you how to do this; follow them as they are placed.

Stage 1: Go to the magnifying glass icon in the upper-right corner of your Mac’s toolbar.

Step 2: Start typing in the search bar terminal and select Terminal from the results.

Stage 3: Search for your administrator using this command.

sudo /usr/bin/dscl . -delete "/Users/[username]"

So, in our example the command would be:

sudo /usr/bin/dscl . -delete "/Users/adminaccount"

Step 4: Press Enter and macOS will ask you to add your administrator password.

Step 5: Enter your administrator password.

After entering the password, the administrator account will no longer appear in your user list. If it does, follow the steps we listed using System Preferences to fix the problem.

Admin Control

If you’re using your Mac for professional purposes, you’ll probably need to grant access to another administrator at some point. And if you have to do it yourself, the process we’ve outlined in this article shouldn’t take you more than a few minutes.

Similarly, you will probably need to remove administrators from your Mac at some stage. You can again do this via System Preferences or use Terminal. Both options are not difficult, so choose the one that suits you best.