Delete Admin user

[Bushel of Apples]

I got a new iMac and want to delete my user account on the old iMac which is the administrator. What I want to do is assign the administrator to a different user (wife) then delete my user profile account altogether. I’d like to make sure that is possible before trying it, if someone could confirm please. Then I’m going to delete the backup in iCloud because I want to start from new on my new iMac.

 

[JonaM]

So you can elevate another user to Admin through the user tab in system preferences and then when logged in as that new admin user you can select to delete the old account. Bear in mind as Admin that account could still in theory use data recovery tools to get that data back if you have anything particularly sensitive in the account you are deleting.

To start from new on the new iMac I would suggest just doing that on the new iMac - i.e. don't take the offer to restore from backup when you set it up. I would strongly recommend not deleting any backups until you're happy the new Mac is set up and nothing is missing!

 

[Fishrrman]

You could do as Jona suggests:
1. Create the NEW user account (administrative) for your wife
2. Log into the new account
3. Now, DELETE the old account (YOUR former account)
The Mac will be "as it was before", with the exception that your old account will be gone.

If you want to be "squeaky clean" about things, you could do it this way:
1. MAKE SURE YOU HAVE A BACKUP FIRST (I always recommend Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper)
2. Boot to INTERNET recovery (command-OPTION-R)
3. Use disk utility to ERASE the internal drive (make sure you go to the view menu and choose "show all disks", so that you can see the internal drive)
4. Re-install the OS using the installer
5. When you do the initial setup, have your wife create the new account (this automatically will grant her administrative privileges).
6. After the initial setup is complete -- if you have 3rd party applications you want her to keep using, use migration assistant to migrate "apps only" (DO NOT migrate your old account).

NOTE: doing it the first way retains the version of the OS that you're using now.

Doing it the second way will install the latest version of the OS that's available for the Mac you have.

 

[Bushel of Apples]

It seems that when I deleted the user account on the iMac that it automatically deleted the backup in iCloud because I looked for it and nothing is there.

 

[Fishrrman]

"It seems that when I deleted the user account on the iMac that it automatically deleted the backup in iCloud because I looked for it and nothing is there."

I don't use iCloud, so my experience with it is limited (as in, "zero").
But...
Seems to me that if you delete the "ground level" account, the "cloud level" of the same account will be deleted, too.

I could be wrong...