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doylee01

macrumors member
Original poster
Nov 30, 2008
40
0
Hello there,
I am getting my first mac for christmas (a 24" imac) and am planning to set up 3 accounts :
1 for me (admin)
Another one for me (standard)
1 for my brother (standard)

I plan to use the standard one for me as my main account but when installing apps and the like plan to switch to the admin one. What i was wondering is, as far as a i can tell from apple is that if i put music on my standard account my brother would not be able to see the music files, the same for pictures and movies. I would like to be able to share the music files and some pictures across both of our accounts. Would putting the music in itunes from the admin account make this possible and what about pictures? I would also like to keep some pictures private, as would he. What can you suggest i do as apple cant seem to give me a straight answer.

Many Thanks, Jack
 

doylee01

macrumors member
Original poster
Nov 30, 2008
40
0
Okay thanks for that, one more thing, would all this data on the shared folders be okay to be backed up with time machine?
 

themoonisdown09

macrumors 601
Nov 19, 2007
4,319
18
Georgia, USA
Okay thanks for that, one more thing, would all this data on the shared folders be okay to be backed up with time machine?

Yes. By default, Time Machine backs up all your files on your computer. You can choose what files or folders you don't want backed up in the Time Machine preferences.

Since it looks like you are new to Macs, Apple has some really useful things on their website here:

http://www.apple.com/support/mac101/
 

doylee01

macrumors member
Original poster
Nov 30, 2008
40
0
Okay thanks, yeah I am new to macs, getting my first one for christmas, can't wait :) i was just double checking everything i wanted to do could be done, thanks again.
 

Ivan P

macrumors 68030
Jan 17, 2008
2,692
4
Home
Hello there,
I am getting my first mac for christmas (a 24" imac) and am planning to set up 3 accounts :
1 for me (admin)
Another one for me (standard)
1 for my brother (standard)

I plan to use the standard one for me as my main account but when installing apps and the like plan to switch to the admin one. What i was wondering is, as far as a i can tell from apple is that if i put music on my standard account my brother would not be able to see the music files, the same for pictures and movies. I would like to be able to share the music files and some pictures across both of our accounts. Would putting the music in itunes from the admin account make this possible and what about pictures? I would also like to keep some pictures private, as would he. What can you suggest i do as apple cant seem to give me a straight answer.

Many Thanks, Jack

To be honest it'd probably be easier just having the one admin account for yourself. It's so much easier installing things while you're doing what you want, instead of switching into another account just to install something.
 

plinden

macrumors 601
Apr 8, 2004
4,029
142
No, keep it like the OP said, admin and two standard. I have an admin and four standard accounts (one for each us in the family) on my Mac.

You don't need to switch to the admin account to install anything. The OS will ask for an admin name/password if you try to modify anything in the system area (like the Applications folder). I can't remember the last time I actually logged on as admin.
 

Ivan P

macrumors 68030
Jan 17, 2008
2,692
4
Home
No, keep it like the OP said, admin and two standard. I have an admin and four standard accounts (one for each us in the family) on my Mac.

You don't need to switch to the admin account to install anything. The OS will ask for an admin name/password if you try to modify anything in the system area (like the Applications folder). I can't remember the last time I actually logged on as admin.

Well in that case then you'd just have an account sitting there pretty much doing nothing. I just prefer all the accounts being used, instead of one that is, in my opinion, a waste of space.
 

plinden

macrumors 601
Apr 8, 2004
4,029
142
Well in that case then you'd just have an account sitting there pretty much doing nothing. I just prefer all the accounts being used, instead of one that is, in my opinion, a waste of space.

Hmm, no, it's not doing "nothing". It's preventing modifications to my system folders without my express permission.
 

munkery

macrumors 68020
Dec 18, 2006
2,217
1
Root authorization prevents modification to your system at the root level so you do not really need an admin and a standard account for yourself, AFAIK. There are enough protections in place in the Mac OS X admin account to prevent doing this, unless you are really paranoid about the potential for future unknown threats that can actually get past all of the safeguards already present. Having to switch accounts to install is the Window's mentality of security.

In Mac OS X, having standard accounts for admins is really only required when there are multiple admins so that when they make administrative changes to the system from their standard accounts using their password there is a log entry for who made the change. If the change is made from their admin account it is more difficult to identify who made the changes; ideally, access to the admin accounts would be restricted but present so that they have the ability to make changes from their standard account.
 
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