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new owner. How do I delete the previous owner from admin and his name as the owners name?
MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 10.13
The person that previously owned the Mac did not follow the steps in What to do before you sell, give away, or trade in your Mac
. Thus, the operating system that is on it, and any installed applications are still tied to the previous owners Apple ID, and your just taking over the Mac will cause you grief until you perform a clean installation of macOS, and associate the machine with your Apple ID. Just removing their user account isn't the solution that is needed.
Since you did not provide the Mac (introduction date) from the menu : About This Mac, I don't know which version of the operating system originally came with the Mac, or what it can be upgraded too. Provided this is a machine manufactured after Summer 2011, you may want to perform an Internet Recovery of the operating system that originally shipped on it, providing your own unique Apple ID and user account, then upgrade from there to the lastest operating system supported by this Mac model.
The person that previously owned the Mac did not follow the steps in What to do before you sell, give away, or trade in your Mac
. Thus, the operating system that is on it, and any installed applications are still tied to the previous owners Apple ID, and your just taking over the Mac will cause you grief until you perform a clean installation of macOS, and associate the machine with your Apple ID. Just removing their user account isn't the solution that is needed.
Since you did not provide the Mac (introduction date) from the menu : About This Mac, I don't know which version of the operating system originally came with the Mac, or what it can be upgraded too. Provided this is a machine manufactured after Summer 2011, you may want to perform an Internet Recovery of the operating system that originally shipped on it, providing your own unique Apple ID and user account, then upgrade from there to the lastest operating system supported by this Mac model.
Do as @VikingOSX suggested and perform a clean install of macOS by first erasing the whole physical drive before reinstalling macOS. Since you can use the system I highly recommend downloading macOS 10.11 El Capitan (or a more recent version of macOS if supported) and create a bootable macOS USB installer using these instructions:
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201372
I would never trust an OS on a computer I've received from someone else (even if I know the person). You never know what might be installed which will cause you problems down the road. You should always wipe out the drive and perform a clean install. You are just asking for trouble if you don't. Being unable to delete a user account is just the first of the issues from not performing a clean install. Consider that there may be some very subtle issues that you haven't even noticed yet.
You should not need to install an intermediate OS if the computer was previously running High Sierra. The only reason to install 10.11 first is if you cannot access the High Sierra installer in the App Store.
Since Lion is so old Safari and most other browsers won't work unless you can find one which someone has made a current browser to work with 10.7.
If the computer was previously running High Sierra, then you should be able to boot into Internet Recovery Mode using Command + Option + R to boot the online version of the macOS installer. Using this key combination will access the highest compatible version of macOS for this computer.
Hi. Thank you, but the previous owner has my name as the administrator and his name is below mine in the other admin box and it is not highlighted...and I can't click on the - box..Can you help? Thank you
Hi. I am not very familiar with a MacBook . I have a dead iPad and an iPhone. I wanted to post a screenshot but do not know how on this..I have a MacBook Pro..High .Sierra
States it is a late 2011 version.
Going to try the recovery you mentioned...wish me luck..
So I erased everything, which deleted the previous owner as an administrator. The location where it says the computer is is incorrect still but that’s not the BI G problem. I installed the program I assume that came with this laptop, lion, but now can’t get any newer program to load. It had High Sierra on it when purchased. I’m trying to upload El Capitan as instructed. But it states it couldn’t do it. I need to get El Capitan before I can get high sierra, correct? Can you help me? Please? Thank you
To remove the other user:
If the '-' is not available, you probably haven't hit the padlock icon to unlock it.
My name as administrator will highlight and guest will highlight but his name is shaded and won't highlight. And I unlocked the padlock...??
I have erased drive. ..then nothing. Did a command r and am now waiting for something to finish. Sure hope I did things correctly. Lol.
Sounds like you did! :)
I purchased a used computer. I am set up as the administrator but how do I delete the previous owner as administrator also and it still says his computer
