A guest account is a great way to allow other users on your Mac without giving them access to all of your personal information. It also allows you to limit the features of the user so that they can only use your computer for basic tasks and not mess around with your settings or files.
Creating a guest account on your Mac is a simple process and will protect your privacy and files. It is also much more storage-friendly than creating individual user accounts, which can occupy a lot of space.
The first step is to make sure that you have an admin password on your Mac, and then follow the instructions below to create a guest account:
Open System Preferences by clicking the Apple icon in the top left corner of your screen and selecting System Preferences. Click on the lock in the lower left corner of the window and enter your administrator password to unlock it.
Next, scroll down to the Users & Groups section and click on Guest User in the side navigation. Then, check the box that says “Allow guests to log in to this computer.”
You can choose to limit the use of a guest user by checking the Limit Adult Websites option, which is only useful if someone you don’t know is using your computer. You can also enable parental controls on the guest account, which will restrict a guest user’s access to certain apps and websites, built-in macOS features, and more.
When a guest user leaves your computer, you can remove their account by deleting it from the User list in Users & Groups. This will remove their home folder and any personal information stored in it, allowing you to free up some storage space.
One important thing to keep in mind about guest user accounts is that they are ephemeral, meaning that all of their files and data will be deleted once they leave the machine. This can be a good thing for people who are not using the machine often but want to have the option of logging in temporarily, but it can be a bad thing if someone who is using the computer is not doing so in a secure manner.
Once a guest user has left your Mac, it is important to remove them as quickly as possible. This will help ensure that no data is left behind that might harm your machine in the future.
The best way to do this is to delete the entire account, but if you are not comfortable doing that, you can remove the user’s home folder from the Users folder or compress it into a disk image. If you need to delete all of the user’s data, it is recommended that you run a Mac optimization app afterwards.
Another way to quickly switch between the guest user account and your own is to use the Show Fast User Switching Menu As option, which will present your full name or your account name in the Quick Access menu. This will save you from having to log out completely when another user needs to use your Mac, and it will make it a lot faster for them to get access to your machine.
