If you receive a computer from someone else, either because you've taken over from them at work, or someone has passed on a computer that they don't need anymore, it's important that you create a new user for yourself before you start to use it.

Also if you share a computer with other family members or work colleagues it's very important to keep your files separate so they don't get accidentally deleted by the other users.

If you just rename an existing user and continue to use it, you might still be logged into any services that they've set up, for example, you might find that you're saving all your files into someone else's Dropbox or OneDrive folder or even that your website logins and credit card details are being saved and synced to another computer of theirs.

If you create a new user and start with that, then you know it's all clean and fresh and that there's nothing left running in the background from the previous user. You can then set up your own preferred way of working and your own backup and sync solutions without being tied to anything that was used before.

It's very easy to set up a new user on both Windows and Mac and we'll show you how to do it here:

macOS


Open System Preferences and then click on Users & Groups, then you just need to click on the + icon at the bottom of the list of users and you can set up the new account.

Please note that you may be required to authenticate as the current user before you can do this. If you need to do this, simply click on the padlock and type in the current password.



Windows 8.1


Go into the Start Screen and then search for and open PC Settings, then click on Accounts down the left hand side of the PC Settings screen, click on other accounts and then click on Add an account.


Once you have everything set up, you can delete the old user if it's no longer required.