How To Hide User Accounts From The Log-In Screen In OS X

If you own a family Mac, then it is definitely useful to make a separate account for each family member, each of which can be customized according to the user’s needs. However, this also leads to an extremely long list on the login window, and an annoying scroll bar down the side.

So, what can you do to remove this list of users filling up your login screen? You can create an “Other” option which will hide user accounts from your lock screen. This option will appear in the login screen, from where you can type in the account username and password manually. But first, you’ll need the account name or “username” of the user(s) that you  want to hide. Here’s how to get short names of user accounts in OS X:

1. Open up “System Preferences” from the Apple Menu or by searching for it in Spotlight.

2. Click on “Users & Groups.”

4. Click on the lock icon in the bottom left corner. Enter your password if prompted. Once entered, you’ll be allowed to make changes.

5. Right click on the user(s) you want to hide and click on “Advanced Options.”

6. You’ll see a field named “Account name”. Copy the account name to store it for hiding the account from the log in screen.

Once you have the account name for the user(s) you want to hide, head over to Terminal and enter in the following command:

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow HiddenUsersList -array-add user1 user2 user3 user4

You might be prompted in to type in your password. Enter in your password to proceed.

Replace “user1”, “user2” and so on with the account names of the users you want to hide from the lock screen. If you want to hide only one users, just enter his/her account name instead of “user 1”, and delete the other other “user” links. Like below:

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow HiddenUsersList -array-add user1

You might be prompted in to type in your password. Enter in your password to proceed.

Once this command has been entered into Terminal, the users that you have specified will no longer show up in the log in screen. Instead, a “Other” option will appear which will let you type in the account username and password to login into it.

To add more users later on to the hidden list, enter in the following command:

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow HiddenUsersList -array-add username1

If you ever feel the need to restore the hidden list of users again, simply enter the following command into terminal:

sudo defaults delete /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow HiddenUsersList

That’s it.

Shujaa Imran

Shujaa Imran is MakeTechEasier's resident Mac tutorial writer. He's currently training to follow his other passion become a commercial pilot. You can check his content out on Youtube