Written by
Amanda Wong
Summary: This post is going to explain the Users folder on Mac, a folder that comes with your Mac. After reading, you will know what the Users folder is, what it contains, how to find it, and whether you can delete a user folder on Mac.
Some folders come with your Mac by default to make the Mac function well, including the Home folder, System folder, macOS Library folder, Applications folder, and the Users folder. Each of them contains different kinds of files that are needed for the Mac to perform correctly. Here, we will walk you through every aspect of the Users folder on Mac.
What is the Users folder on Mac?
macOS is a multiuser system that allows creating several user accounts on the same Mac computer. There are different types of user accounts such as admin account, root user, guest user, standard user, and sharing-only account.
When a new user account is added on Mac, it will generate a corresponding user folder, named similarly to the user account(being different from the Windows user folder), it is what we called home folder. The Users folder is where to keep the home folders of all the people set up as users on your Mac. You can also try to recover a deleted user on Mac using the User folder if you have selected Don't change the home folder while deleting.
Besides, the Users folder on Mac also contains a Shared folder, it can be accessed by anyone who uses the Mac. Every user on the Mac can add certain files/folders into the Shared folder to make them available for all other users. Such a feature is convenient for different Mac user accounts to share files.
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How to find the Users folder on Mac?
Some of the folders that come with your Mac such as Applications, Documents, Desktop, and Downloads provide you direct entries in Finder, while some are not. Apple hides some system folders for the sake of the security of the OS, preventing them from haphazardly changing. And you can reveal the Users folder on Mac by following the steps below:
- In Finder, click Go on the top menu bar and choose Go to Folder.
- Type /users/ in the search box and press the Enter key.
All the files and folders are stored on your startup disk, namely Macintosh HD by default, you can also find the Users folder there.
- In Finder's left sidebar, find and select Macintosh HD.
- Tap on the Users folder to open it.
After you get into the User folder, you can see all the user folders there with their usernames. And the folder with a house icon is your user folder(home folder), you can access it and edit the files contained. As for other user folders, they are protected by their own passwords, if you try to open the folders, it prompts an error message "The folder 'xx' can't be opened because you don't have permission to see its contents."
In addition to your own user folder, there is another folder you can access, the Shared folder, as we have mentioned above. If you want to share files with other users on the Mac, you can add them to this Shared folder, just directly drag and drop the files to the Shared folder, then other users can access them when logged in to the Mac.
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