Changed Account Name & Full Name, but haven't restarted MacBook (High Sierra) yet— way to undo it?

Question

Changed Account Name & Full Name, but haven't restarted MacBook (High Sierra) yet— way to undo it?

I have an older MacBook Air—it runs on macOS High Sierra 10.13.06... because that's the last update it would take. I have 2 Admin accounts, one for home and one that was for university.

The university account name hasn't suited my usage for years now, and I swore I'd changed the Account Name and Full Name before, so I decided to change it the other day: settings>users&groups>advanced options>account name, settings>users&groups>advanced options>full name

I did it, and then got nervous that maybe I hadn't made those changes before (maybe, duh, lets heed the warning). I haven't restarted my computer yet, so no changes or disasters have occurred yet.

I changed the names back to what they originally were, but I don't know if that will stop disaster from striking if the computer does restart. I'm going to do a Time Machine backup on an external hard drive today. I've been reading about things I can do if it restarts and I did mess things up—but is there anything I can do right now to undo it?

Whoops, thank you.

MacBook Air 13″

Posted on Nov 19, 2024 10:29 AM

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Answer 1

HWTech

Level 9

60,452 points

Nov 19, 2024 8:39 PM in response to casuallycryingoverapple

FYI, here is an Apple article with instructions for changing the short user name associated with the macOS user accounts & home folder name. Every step must be followed exactly with only one step listed as optional.

Change the name of your macOS user account and home folder - Apple Support

You can easily change the long user name without any worries. Changing anything else under that "Advanced" section is dangerous, so proceed carefully & follow each step very carefully. Having a second working admin user account and a current backup is absolutely critical in case something goes wrong.

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Answer 2

tbirdvet

Level 6

14,465 points

Nov 19, 2024 1:38 PM in response to casuallycryingoverapple

If you have changed it back the way it was before then you should be fine. When you make those changes and exit the menu the change has been made. A TM backup could also be used to restore to as before you made the change if you had that as well.

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