> Trash a former user’s Home folder
Although my Mac mini running Catalina only has one user, Time Machine backups and its Users folder contain a Home folder for another user bearing my full name, which isn’t listed in Users & Groups. How can I get rid of it?
Deleting an unwanted user’s Home folder is best done when removing that user from the Users & Groups pane, because that offers the option to Delete the home folder at the same time.
The quickest solution is to delete that folder in Terminal, but make sure you use the correct command. In Terminal, type
cd /Users
then
sudo rm -rf shortusername
where shortusername is the name of that user’s Home folder. Authenticate with your admin password. There is a more roundabout route which starts by creating a new user with exactly the same short username as the Home folder you want to remove. In the Users & Groups pane, create that account and you’ll be prompted to use the existing Home folder, which you should agree to. Log out and log back in using that new username to see if you want to keep any files that are stored there.
Log out, and log back in using your admin account. Now remove that user account from Users & Groups, this time ensuring you delete the Home folder with it. Don’t try removing the primary admin user account this way; macOS shouldn’t let you, as it wreaks havoc and you’ll end up having to reinstall macOS.