How to change user name?

Question

I am rookie in mac and first time when I got mac I set user name as Admin therefore all that associate with the mac begin with name Admin.

I would like to change this name to Aleksey

I found in System Preferences tab where it could be changed

But I am not sure that if I change name I will not get errors in consequences , because as far as I understand such way I will change path.

Eventually I am not sure that path will be changed in all apps where it has been taken

If my explanation not clear feel free to ask

Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

If you have sufficient space on your drive to duplicate your user account temporarily…

1. Copy your home folder /Users/old-username to /Users/new-username.

   sudo cp -a /Users/old-username /Users/new-username
   

2. Create a new user account in Users & Groups. Enter the new-username as the username when creating the account. You will be prompted with the following:

   The Users folder already contains a folder with the same name as the home folder for this account.

   Choose Use Existing Folder.

3. Log out of your old-username and log in to your new-username.

4. Once you've verified everything is as it should be, you can delete the old-username account.

5. If permissions are incorrect, continue from step 7 of the next section.

If you don't have sufficient space to duplicate…

1. You even more so need a backup before proceeding with this method.

2. Create a new user account or use an existing secondary administrator account. This account must not have either old-username or new-username. Log in to this account. Make sure you are not using Fast User Switching and old-username is correctly logged out.

3. From this account, rename /Users/old-username to /Users/new-username using Finder.

4. In Users & Groups, unlock the preference pane, right-click on old-username and choose Advanced Options…. You'll be presented with the pane you screenshot in your question.

5. Change Account name to new-username and Home directory to /Users/new-username.

6. Quit System Preferences. Do not log in to new-username yet.

7. Shut down your Mac and boot into the Recovery HD by holding ⌘R on boot.

8. Open Terminal from the Utilities menu and run resetpassword. A new dialog will be shown.

9. Select new-username from the accounts list, then click Reset for Reset Home Directory Permissions and ACLs.

10. Once complete, restart and boot normally, then log in with new-username.