Benefits of multiple accounts

[Vos]

Hey all,

We've been using our iMac for three years now. Three persons, three accounts. Lately I've been thinking about just using only one account on the iMac. It's easier to share documents, music and videos, you don't have to switch user, no multiple accounts are logged in which might save some memory.
What would you do in our situation?

I use the mac for games and watching series.
My parents use Garageband, and check their mail.

What do you guys think? What are some drawbacks of having only one account?
Thanks in advance!
Vos

 

[Jolly Giant]

I would keep an account for each. you can easily share documents etc. by storing them in a public folder on your Mac.

in fact, I would create a fourth (admin, "virgin") user account for troubleshooting purposes.

 

[MisterMe]

Hey all,

We've been using our iMac for three years now. Three persons, three accounts. Lately I've been thinking about just using only one account on the iMac. It's easier to share documents, music and videos, you don't have to switch user, no multiple accounts are logged in which might save some memory.
What would you do in our situation?

I use the mac for games and watching series.
My parents use Garageband, and check their mail.

What do you guys think? What are some drawbacks of having only one account?
Thanks in advance!
Vos

Very bad idea. Your computer should have at least one account for each user. You would not share a single toothbrush with your parents. You should not share computer accounts.

If you don't have experience with how others use their computers, then you should watch a few friends and loved ones. You will discard the idea in a New York second. You don't want Mom deleting Dad's email. You certainly don't want Dad to trash your application or change Mom's display resolution.

Don't do it.

 

[Gregg2]

One account here. Two full time users, two part time users. No problems.

 

[Vos]

Thanks for the advice! The main reason why we had this plan is because we use the mac mainly for listening to music, and I have all our music in iTunes, and making it fully accessible to everyone is strangely hard to accomplish.
I have my own laptop, so I occasionally play a game or use Itunes on the mac.
My parents use the mac ten minutes a day to check mail (gmail, so they can't access eachothers mail), or to turn on the music.
Those accounts are 10,15 and 50 gigs of data, without the personal documents. Seems like one account would greatly reduce that taken space.
It still seams like a good idea to me Any more focus points, before making the decision?

 

[Al1n]

Before you make the decision, make sure you don't have some sort of home-made porn on your computer. You don't what your parents see that. It's awkward, trust me. Been there, done that.

 

[MisterMe]

...

My parents use the mac ten minutes a day to check mail (gmail, so they can't access eachothers mail), or to turn on the music.
Those accounts are 10,15 and 50 gigs of data, without the personal documents. Seems like one account would greatly reduce that taken space.
It still seams like a good idea to me Any more focus points, before making the decision?

Space savings is simply not a reason to break such a fundamental tenet of sound computer use. With the amount of free space remaining on your hard drive, you could add darned near every music composition ever recorded. If sharing music is what you want to do, then you should setup an account for this specific purpose. Also, you may share music collections among accounts or event among multiple computers on the network whether they are Macs or PCs. iTunes picks-up shared collections automatically.