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Here's How to Set Up and Use Multi-User on Android 4.2 Jelly Bean

2012-12-01
hey guys it's Joe with pocketnow.com Android 4.2 brought with it a new feature and that's multi-user support at least on tablets anyway so let's go take a look at how we can set that up switch between users and even delete users when we don't need them anymore and I'll talk about a couple things that you probably want to keep in mind before you get too excited about multi-user so here we've got a nexus 10 it's running Android 4.2 and I've only got one user let's go ahead and unlock it from here and we're gonna go into settings and you'll notice I've got my own avatar up here this is me this is the current user we open that up you'll see information about me let's add a new user go over to settings and we're gonna come down to users this is me my name my nickname owner info whatnot and other users notice there are none at least not currently so let's add one some information for us we'll say ok now it's asking us if we want to set up the user and we have to make sure that we have enough available space on the tablet so that they can have all of their stuff so that's the first caveat the first thing you need to know is every user that you add is going to take up extra space on the device and it's not going to be available to you until you delete that user so keep that in mind if you've got a limited storage capacity device an 8 or 16 gig tablet you'll need to be a little more careful than if you have a 32 so now you notice down here I've got me and I've got this new user and it doesn't take too long to switch between the two it's not quite as fast as I'd like it to be but there you go I can switch right over to it and oh let's unlock and the first thing you're met with is well the same thing that you get when you have a brand-new tablet it's asking you to step through the process I'm gonna say no that I don't have that I'm not gonna get an account now yada yada yada and let's put in Joe Rogers how about that I'll be mr. Rogers for today Joe Roger and we are now complete same thing we've got our basic desktop our home screens nothing here because I didn't set up a Google account I can always go in and add one of those over here in settings and under accounts so you have none I can add an account right in there so you can come back and do that at a later time once you've done that hey it's great you've got your own nice little user space so if you're a parent and you have a kid here you go now you can give them your tablet and they can mess up their own thing and short of doing physical damage they're not going to mess up your savegames or reply to emails that you don't want them to or all that kind of fun stuff so switching users come up here it's just as simple as that again takes a little bit of time to swap out that user space and then we can log right in and you'll notice that this is my desktop right there okay so now I don't want this user on my tablet anymore how do I get rid of it go back in to settings and back down to users primary user you can't get rid of without doing a factory reset at least not as far as I know other users hit that little delete are you sure yep let's delete it and gone just as easy as that one other thing that you want to keep in mind and that has to do with custom roms and flashing images if you are using Android 4.2 and you are using multi users or arguably even if you're not it might mess with the SD storage space and start nesting folders deeper and deeper and deeper until you run out of space and it's kind of a bug a lot of the the recovery makers and and whatnot are addressing that but keep it in mind it's a little bit early in the game you shouldn't be doing multi-user on smartphones anyway at least not according to Google but we really don't know why that is anyway showing off multiple users on Android 4.2 jelly bean for Pocket now I'm Joe Levi thanks for watching
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