I have two User names on my Mac - both are me but I can only access one of them - Mac OS Big Sur 11.7.10

I am using a mid-2014 MacBook Pro running MacOS 11.7.10. I couldn't work out why I had used almost all my 256GB disk space so, after a lot of searching, I discovered that I have two user names - Tricia, which has used 26,6 GB of space and Tricia 1, which has used 159,3 GB. I have no idea how I've managed to do this. My real problem is that I can only access the user 'Tricia' when all the documents and photos I need to access are under the 'Tricia 1' user name, which doesn't appear anywhere other than when I click on Macintosh HD in Finder. I have tried to drag and drop the Tricia 1 folder onto the Sidebar but it won't allow me to do that. If I shut down my Mac and re-start the User Names that appear are my husband's name (he doesn't use the Mac but I created an account for him when he had problems with his own Mac), my full name, i.e. not either of my User names and Guest. When I log into the account which is my full name the User that opens automatically is Tricia. Can someone kindly explain to me how I might either combine my two User names or, at least, access the Tricia 1 User name? If it helps I could upload a screenshot of the Finder screen. I would be grateful for any suggestions as I'm completely stumped.

MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 11.7

Posted on Mar 29, 2025 9:06 PM

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Mar 30, 2025 5:13 PM in response to Patricia Henwood

Use the third party app Carbon Copy Cloner (CCC) to copy the files you want from the other user account into your main user account. CCC will prompt for your admin password so it can access data in other macOS user accounts. You can easily select & deselect items to copy. CCC is from a long time well respected developer and has a free trial period.

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Mar 30, 2025 6:13 PM in response to Patricia Henwood

You will be accessing the data to select/deselect items through the CCC interface.


CCC has allowed for making bootable clones of macOS boot drives for decades and can still do so for Intel Macs. However, bootable clones are no longer an option for M-series Macs due to the changes involving the security enclave chip for privacy & security.

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Mar 30, 2025 9:42 AM in response to Patricia Henwood

What's in the Finder likely doesn't matter. It might be that (for whatever reason) instead of showing the normal "Macintosh HD" and "Macintosh HD - Data" volumes, yours say "Tricia" and "Tricia 1".


But those are the same thing - modern versions of macOS just subdivide the APFS filesystem into two volumes, one for the OS itself and one for your data, and then make them appear as a single volume in the filesystem using a volume group.


What matters in this case is what is under System Settings' "Users and Group" preferences - what accounts are listed there. I suspect it is only two - yours and your husbands' which you created as you described.

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Mar 30, 2025 4:54 PM in response to g_wolfman

Thanks for replying to my post! No, Disk Utility shows Macintosh HD and Macintosh - Data volumes. I must admit that I don't know how the APFS filesystem works but I think that the initial problem was caused by my using the Migration Assistant at some stage when I moved to a new computer (the MacBook Pro) - because I had Tricia as my User name on my previous computer I vaguely remember some message about having to use a different User name, hence Tricia 1. While I've been trying to free up space on my computer I deleted my husband's account (not that it freed up very much space at all), however System Settings User and Group preferences list only my full name as Admin and Guest. Nothing else. My problem continues to be that there is no way I can gain access to the Tricia 1 account. I have found a couple of other posts in the forums of people who've had similar problems - also due to Migration Assistant, it would seem - however, the answers seem to be that there is no way that the two users can be merged and it appears the only solution is that one user must be deleted. I wouldn't mind deleting the Tricia account (26 GB) if I could actually access the Tricia 1 account but I simply haven't been able to find a way to log in to Tricia 1. Any ideas about that? Thank you again for taking the rime to reply.

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Mar 30, 2025 5:32 PM in response to HWTech

Thank you for your suggestion. I've heard of CCC - but years ago now - I think it was long before Time Machine and I used a different program from CCC to backup because CCC didn't make a bootable copy - but maybe I'm. wrong. I will download it and give it a try. I'm just wondering whether I would be accessing the data to copy in Finder through the User/Library (that may not be the correct terminology) as I can only login to the Tricia account or perhaps using CCC means that it doesn't matter how I login? Thank you again for your helpful suggestion.

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I have two User names on my Mac - both are me but I can only access one of them - Mac OS Big Sur 11.7.10

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