I start to think this might be a bug in Catalina.
STEPS TO REPRODUCE:
- I formatted my Mac-mini to factory reset (don't remember if was High Sierra or Mojave)
- I created a user at first startup.
- I upgraded to Catalina
- After Catalina installation I create a few users admin and non
- With a new admin user I can delete other admin or standard users without problem but I cannot delete the user created previously to Catalina. The message says:
to delete the user you need to enter their password
I did it several time, is the password I still use it to login with that user and it won't delete the account.
(See the problem when I try to delete the 4th user: no options is prompted)
So there must have been some sort of change between OS version and users created after Catalina cannot manage users created before Catalina.
I also tried to change the password for the user, the problem persists.
I also tried to remove the user through Terminal, no joy:
sudo dscl . -delete /Users/"yourusername"
returns:
<main> delete status: eDSPermissionError
<dscl_cmd> DS Error: -14120 (eDSPermissionError)
Best Answer
I found the solution!
This was a user I created after the factory reset and therefore was created on High Sierra.
macOS High Sierra has a bug around the user
501
which is the very first user you create after login:https://medium.com/@ambroselittle/cant-delete-original-admin-user-on-macos-high-sierra-1d79fb438246
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8087348
So what we are going to do now is substitute the user you want to keep with the user
501
that you want to delete. Is a bit hacky but it worked on my Catalina:diskutil apfs updatePreboot /
in Terminal.Strange that the upgrade to Catalina is not backward compatible and doesn't fix the issue related to previous users.