If we have only used our Mac, having more than one account does not make sense unless we use the Mac for work and family life and we do not want to mix the contents. But if there are many users at home who often need to use the Mac, the best way to having all the content organized is creating user accounts independent so that each user has their content separate. Standard users cannot make changes to the system just like they cannot install applications without the administrator password.
If we are going on a trip and want to leave a member of our family as administrator, we can give them our password (not recommended) or convert your standard account into an administrator account, in case any user has a problem during the days that we will not be there. In order to convert a standard account into an Administrator one, we have two ways, through the terminal or through the Users and groups configuration menus located within System Preferences.
Convert standard account to administrator account in OS X
Method 1 - Through System Preferences
- First of all we head up System preferences. Click on Users and groups.
- Next we go to the left column where all the users who use the Mac are found and click on the account we want to turn into an administrator.
- In the right part of that window, a box with the name will appear at the bottom Allow user to manage this computer. We have to check this box in order to make the user in question an administrator.
- Once the process is finished we must restart the Mac for the changes to take place correctly.
Method 2 - Via Terminal
- Once we have opened the Terminal application we will write the following command: dscl. -append / groups / admin GroupMembership USERNAME where USERNAME is the name of the user account we want to make an administrator.
- Then OS X will ask us for the current administrator password and will inform us that we must reboot the system for the changes to take place correctly.