One of the most common questions users of Mac OS X ask is “How do I change my short username?” Although OS X provides a simple interface—the Accounts pane of System Preferences—for changing a user’s long name, there’s no easy way to change the short name of an account once the account is created. Apple provides a complex set of instructions, but that process actually involves creating a new user account and then transferring all your data over to it, which isn’t as complete as actually changing your short username. (Using this approach, there are places around the OS where your short username doesn’t get changed or updated; in addition, your new account ends up with a different behind-the-scenes user ID than your original, which can cause problems with certain programs and when working with network and external drives.)
I provided a more comprehensive tutorial for making such a change in my book Mac OS X Power Tools. However, given the complexity of manually changing the short username, there’s considerable potential for error, regardless of whose instructions you use. To make this process easier—and safer—James Bucanek and I created ChangeShortName.
ChangeShortName is a utility that does the dirty work involved in changing the short name of a user’s account in Mac OS X versions 10.4.x and 10.3.x. (Please read the documentation for information about compatibility with Mac OS X 10.2.x; ChangeShortName has not been tested with Mac OS X Server, and the current version, 1.3, is not compatible with Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard—see below.) You simply choose the account you wish to modify, provide the desired new short username, and then click a button; ChangeShortName does the rest. (To perform its magic, ChangeShortName actually runs a well-tested Unix shell script, which is also provided separately for those who prefer, or need to use, the command line.) ChangeShortName also includes protections that make using it much safer than trying to change your short username manually.
Leopard (Mac OS X 10.5) users: The current version of ChangeShortName is not compatible with Leopard due to significant changes Apple made to Leopard "under the hood." However, the good news is that Apple has provided in Leopard tools for changing your short username yourself, and those tools work well. I've written an article for Macworld explaining these options. We're still looking into whether or not there is a need for a Leopard-compatible version of ChangeShortName; for now, most users will find Leopard's built-in options to be sufficient.
IMPORTANT! Although ChangeShortName has been thoroughly tested, you must read the documentation included with ChangeShortName before using it. This is not optional. It’s also worth noting that because changing an account’s short username is a serious procedure, you should do it only as a last resort. The best option is to simply learn to live with your present short username. Or, if the account was just created, create a new account with the desired short username and then delete the “unwanted” account. That said, if you’re determined to change the short username of an account, ChangeShortName is your best option for doing so.
If you find ChangeShortName useful, we appreciate contributions, which help offset all the hours James puts into coding. You can use PayPal—by clicking the button below—to donate whatever amount ChangeShortName is worth to you:
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Download ChangeShortName v1.3 (~424k)
Released May 25, 2007
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