Run Mail as another user

Nov 14, '03 10:16:00AM

Contributed by: Anonymous

I couldn't find this in your hint site, so thought I'd add it to show off some of the cool UNIX goodness in OS X, even for GUI guys like myself. I maintain two accounts on my machine, one for home, and one for work. I like to track my email throughout the day for the other account, regardless of which one I'm working in. Here's how you can do it:

  1. Launch a shell
  2. Type su other_acct_name
  3. Enter the password for that account. Now you're a user for that account.
  4. Type /Applications/Mail.app/Contents/MacOS/Mail and hit Enter.
Voila, Mail for the other account will launch and use the library, preferences, etc. for that other account. That way I can track mail from both accounts and still keep them separate.

Probably not much of an achievement for a UNIX propellor head, but for a GUI guy like me, this is seriously cool.

Comments (10)


Mac OS X Hints
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20031106101717921