But this is only a recent tradition and this is actually a very customizable field. It is customary for a normal user to have their own group that matches the ID of their user ID. You will often look up the existing users to see what is available before doing this. As is typical with UNIX systems, we generally start with 500 for the first user and increment. Then we set the unique user ID (uid) for the user. create /Users/sally RealName 'Sally Brown' Next, we set the actual name of the account user. The macOS default is /bin/tcsh and the most recommended shell is /bin/zsh.

But we will go line by line and explain what is happening.įirst, we create the user 'container' for the account: sudo dscl.

append /Groups/admin GroupMembership sally create /Users/sally NFSHomeDirectory /Local/Users/sally In this example, we will walk through creating a completely new user, setting their details, adding them to the 'admin' group (giving them the ability to use sudo to manage the system), and setting their password.įirst the full example, then we will break it down: sudo dscl. In macOS we use dscl or the Directory Service Command Line utility to manipulate user accounts. Unlike traditional UNIX systems, Mac OSX and macOS do not keep all users in the /etc/passwd system. Managing Users in macOS can be a bit challenging, but it can be done if we understand the steps involved.

Mac terminal commands creation