Change the default user name for AFP connections

Oct 31, '07 07:30:00AM

Contributed by: robg

When you connect to another Mac (or other device) using AFP, did you know you can control what shows up in the Name field? By default, OS X will populate your full user name, but you can change this via some hidden preferences.

For instance, to make the dialog show your short username instead, do this in Terminal:

$ ### in 10.4...
$ defaults write -g com.apple.AppleShareClientCore -dict-add afp_use_default_name -bool NO
$ defaults write -g com.apple.AppleShareClientCore -dict-add afp_use_short_name -bool YES
$
$ ### in 10.5...
$ defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.NetworkAuthorization UseDefaultName -bool NO
$ defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.NetworkAuthorization UseShortName -bool YES
You can read about the other options, including one to display a custom name, in this Apple article.

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Mac OS X Hints
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=2007103106520144