Need help with fixing incorrectly renamed home folder

[shb90]

Hi All. I reached out to Apple Support about this several times but they really didn't get into that much troubleshooting because my device is *obsolete*. I have a MBPro 2012 with Catalina 10.15.7

I was trying to rename my home folder and missed a crucial step (the advanced options rename). What happened after that, is that when I logged back into my account, everything had disappeared as if it was a new account, and now when I go to r/users, the home folder shows the same name, and the renamed folder is now another folder. I cannot copy and paste a lot of the contents from that folder onto an external hard drive because it says I don't have the permissions. I did not back up before this situation.....

Is there any way to undo this grand error? I have the new admin account that I made to complete the rename but don't know how to go back from this.... Any help will be appreciated. I have precious photos in there

 

[MacsBug]

if you have a new Admin account the easist way would be to login as root and then just rename your new admin acct home folder by adding a 1 at the end. Then rename your old admin home folder to the name that the new foler was before you added the 1 at the end.

An example would be your old home folder is named John, and your new admin folder is shb90. login as root, rename the shb90 folder to shb901, then rename john to shb90. log out, and back into your new admin account and things should be back to normal

 

[Rodananne]

That's brilliant

 

[OldSchool]

I did this last year and forgot a step at the very end and had a messed up home folder for a few months. YOU HAVE TO FOLLOW THE DIRECTIONS TO THE LETTER.

Change the name of your macOS user account and home folder​

 

[OldSchool]

if you have a new Admin account the easist way would be to login as root and then just rename your new admin acct home folder by adding a 1 at the end. Then rename your old admin home folder to the name that the new foler was before you added the 1 at the end.

An example would be your old home folder is named John, and your new admin folder is shb90. login as root, rename the shb90 folder to shb901, then rename john to shb90. log out, and back into your new admin account and things should be back to normal

Wish I had of done that last year.

 

[shb90]

Wish I had of done that last year.

I did this last year and forgot a step at the very end and had a messed up home folder for a few months. YOU HAVE TO FOLLOW THE DIRECTIONS TO THE LETTER.

Change the name of your macOS user account and home folder​

yeah man I felt pretty stupid about it, no doubt about that. my folder is now messed up

 

[shb90]

if you have a new Admin account the easist way would be to login as root and then just rename your new admin acct home folder by adding a 1 at the end. Then rename your old admin home folder to the name that the new foler was before you added the 1 at the end.

An example would be your old home folder is named John, and your new admin folder is shb90. login as root, rename the shb90 folder to shb901, then rename john to shb90. log out, and back into your new admin account and things should be back to normal

so I tried this, but it still is giving me the same error regarding permissions.

originally, I had one admin account, called sasha. I wanted to rename the home folder, so I created an admin account called admin tasks. I logged into that, and changed the name of the home folder from sasha, to sashasilver. I did not edit the name under advanced options however, so when I logged in to sasha next time, everything set to default and it had a new home folder called sasha.

to try to fix this, I logged into admin tasks, went to users and groups/advanced options and then renamed the file path there to sashasilver as well. now when I log in, things look normal again but it says I don't have permission to access the files. I went ahead and renamed everything back to sasha as well as a last attempt effort based on what you were saying but the permission is still an issue.

 

[MacsBug]

The problem that you are having is due to the fact that you changed the name with another user account and not root. When you did this, you were prompted to enter the password for the Admin Tasks account, and that messed up the permissions.

Follow these steps, and this should fix things for you.

1. Shut Down your Mac
2. Boot into the RecoveryHD by holding down Command R
3. At the macOS Utilities screen select Terminal under the Utilities menu
4. in the Terminal type in repairHomePermissions
5. Select the name of your sasha account, and click on Next
6. Click Exit
7. Restart your Mac

When you log in things should be back to normal.

 

[shb90]

The problem that you are having is due to the fact that you changed the name with another user account and not root. When you did this, you were prompted to enter the password for the Admin Tasks account, and that messed up the permissions.

Follow these steps, and this should fix things for you.

1. Shut Down your Mac
2. Boot into the RecoveryHD by holding down Command R
3. At the macOS Utilities screen select Terminal under the Utilities menu
4. in the Terminal type in repairHomePermissions
5. Select the name of your sasha account, and click on Next
6. Click Exit
7. Restart your Mac

When you log in things should be back to normal.

tried this as well :/ thank you for listing out these instructions!!