How to Change the Default User at Mac Startup Login

Eoin_C wrote:

HWTech wrote:

Of course clicking on (perhaps hovering over) the user will show a list of all users. I believe you can also use the Up Arrow or maybe it is the Down Arrow key to have it display a list of all the users.

IIRC, On the login screen you can try pressing Option + Enter which seems to cause it to display all the users across the middle of the screen like it did with older versions of macOS. I tried this on one Mac and it seemed to cause the login screen to remain that way, but I cannot say for how long.

That's what I'm trying to avoid having to do every time.

Then I don't understand. This is only difference between the login screens of macOS Sequoia/Tahoe and earlier versions of macOS.

FYI, I believe the macOS 15.x+ login screens default to the last user to log into the Mac.

Aha -- I think you're on to something. I started it, logged into my main account only, shut it down & restarted, and it defaulted to my main account. Now if there were a way to turn off the dynamic selection.....

I thought I did with the Option + Enter key combo (use that key combo while on the login screen). Didn't that work to showcase the multiple logins like it used to with macOS 14.x Sonoma & earlier?

You can always provide Apple with product feedback here:

Feedback - macOS - Apple

Eoin_C wrote:

If it insists on pre-selecting the first user to log in, I want it to be the one I actually use, not one I created just for testing purposes.

Suppose you have two user accounts on your machine: Joe and Bill. You're Joe. You don't want Bill's login screen automatically presented every time you boot your machine, you want your own.

If it didn't pre-select any user by default, that would be one thing. But consistently pre-selecting the wrong user every time is getting really annoying.

Did you try pressing Option + Enter on the login screen to see if it would revert the login screen to the old style where no user was the default? This would give you what you want....the old style of logging in. Or try @John Galt's suggestion of hiding the user accounts although I do urge caution since I have seen some macOS bugs/issues with hiding user accounts.

I had seen this suggested by someone on this forum & I only tried it on one laptop, but it appeared to work (it wasn't my laptop or one I use all the time which is why I tried it so I cannot say for sure it lasts although it survived multiple reboots).

Another option is to forego showing macOS user accounts at all and go with manually entering the username along with the password.

Here are several forum posts from as far back as 2015 with the same question.....guess what, there are no solutions to selecting a default user account for the login screen. If anyone does know, they haven't shared it with anyone and it would not involve the GUI interface.

https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/480465/specify-default-user-for-macos-sequoia-login-screen

How to set default user at login screen? … - Apple Community

https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/291492/how-to-set-a-default-user-on-the-login-screen-without-automatically-logging-in

John Galt wrote:

Unless I am misunderstanding your question, the list of users (icons) appears in alphabetical order from left to right. None are selected by default... you have to do that.

macOS 15.x Sequoia unfortunately changed things. All of the users are now hidden behind a single user & are located at the bottom center of the screen. Very annoying change.

Unless I am misunderstanding your question, the list of users (icons) appears in alphabetical order from left to right. None are selected by default... you have to do that.

Apparently I did misunderstand your question. The "diag user" as you described it is just another user.

Of course clicking on (perhaps hovering over) the user will show a list of all users. I believe you can also use the Up Arrow or maybe it is the Down Arrow key to have it display a list of all the users.

IIRC, On the login screen you can try pressing Option + Enter which seems to cause it to display all the users across the middle of the screen like it did with older versions of macOS. I tried this on one Mac and it seemed to cause the login screen to remain that way, but I cannot say for how long. I was unable to find a way to revert it to the new default so I didn't want to try it on anyone else's Mac.

FYI, I believe the macOS 15.x+ login screens default to the last user to log into the Mac.

For the purposes you describe, the following might be useful: Hide a user account in macOS - Apple Support. Be advised that I have not tried it recently.