Mistyping My Own Name
Yesterday I was setting up a new computer computer for work. I use Nix to manage all of the configuration for my development environment so one of the steps is to run a script to bootstrap everything. It was all going great until I encountered an error:
Cannot find home folder: /Users/michale.hadley
Cue dramatic zoom on michale.hadley. Turns out during the initial setup I had, well, mistyped my own name.
What am I supposed to do now? I’ve never had to change a username on MacOS before and it doesn’t seem trivial. What might break? Should I nuke everything and start from scratch? Is the more pragmatic thing to just become Michale Hadley from now on? Do I immortalize this mistake forever in my Nix configuration?.
After a little frustration, turns out there’s a way out of this:
- You can’t directly edit your own username, at least in the MacOS settings GUI. So first create a new admin user and log in as them.
- Now in the Settings the username field is editable. So change that.
- Don’t be like me and immediately try to log in as the original user; MacOS will create a new home folder using the new name and then hang on the sign-in screen. Instead, rename the home folder in Finder, and then select it as the user’s home folder in the GUI.
So in the end I managed to correct my mistake. Initially Nix complained about
not finding the old, typo-ed home folder, but that was fixed by deleting a
.nix-profile symlink.
I’m still a little spooked about what gremlins may be hiding inside of a user account who had at one time had their username changed in a very janky feeling way. I guess I’ll find out.