How do I upgrade an account to admin?

[kyleh613]

I want to upgrade one of my accounts on Mac OS X to admin privileges but I am not seeing the option from my admin account. I couldn't find anything on Google, is it possible to do this without deleting the account and making a whole new one?

 

[Intell]

I'm on Leopard, but it's mostly the same. You need to first open the Accounts pref pane and unlock it. Select the account to want to make an Admin. Check the "Allow user to Administer this computer" box. That's it.

Note: You can change the Admin status of an account when you (the person doing the changes) is an Admin.

 

[kyleh613]

Ooh gosh, that should have been very obvious to me. Thank you. It is showing as an admin now. Does that account still use the password of my other admin account or its own password? I guess I will find out. When it was a normal user account, it did not have a password.

 

[Intell]

Then it's password is currently blank/nothing. You should give it a password. Even if it's "1234", because a weak password is better then no password.

 

[kyleh613]

This is very true. I was setting this up for my parents mac and things like passwords confuse them. They are old. 🙂 I will just write it down for them on a sticky and put it on the monitor.