Is it safe to delete my old User Profile?

[cosmocanuck]

Hi everybody!

Many months ago I had a (luckily rare) problem with my Mac, and part of the solution involved setting up a brand-new user and abandoning my old User ID. I had to manually copy over a lot of files and preferences, but eventually things settled down and worked smoothly again.

I occasionally get a situation that requires me to change permissions on a folder that still "belongs" to my old user ID, but this is increasingly rare. It is, however, annoying - as is the appearance of two user ID's with slightly different names. I'd like to delete the old username/ID, just to tidy things up, but I'm wondering if I'm asking for trouble.

System Preferences (Users section) tells me that deleted users' files will be saved in a "Deleted Users" folder, but I'm wondering if this is enough, or if I will muck things up by deleting a user who is still the "owner" of who-knows-how-many files and/or folders on my system.

What happens to the ownership of such items when the user who owns them is deleted from the system?

I'd just like to check in with the experts before I take what might be a drastic manoeuvre... thanks in advance for your advice!

Adam

[barhar]

'I occasionally get a situation that requires me to change permissions on a folder that still "belongs" to my old user ID ... I'd like to delete the old username/ID ... I'm asking for trouble(?)'

If the files and / or folders are within a user's 'Home' folder, and that user's account is deleted - so are the files and / or folders.
If the files and / or folders are elsewhere (other then within the user's 'Home' folder), and that user's account is deleted - the files and / or folders will remain.

'What happens to the ownership of such items when the user who owns them is deleted from the system?', the items 'owner' changes to '(unknown)'.

[cosmocanuck]

Well, I guess it's safe then, as there's definitely nothing in the old user folder that I'm using. I'm going to go for it!

[cosmocanuck]

Well, two weeks after I bravely deleted my old profile... everything is A-OK!

Thanks for the advice that helped me take the plunge!

Adam