Basic question about two users on an iMac

[Adelphos33]

I have a new iMac - I set it up with my Apple ID. I want to give my wife the ability to use the computer to do basic stuff like surfing the web, mail, Zoom, Word, etc by adding a User. She has her own Apple ID that stores her messages, photos and such. She uses a work laptop and an iPad Air for most at home computing.

1) I don’t want my wife to have access to my E-Mails and messages; I don’t want access to hers either
2) I don’t want to download her messages, photos and such to this iMac - it would be great if I could give her account without ever entering her Apple ID on the account, but I could disable mail, messages, photos piecemeal if necessary

Is this possible to setup? Googling doesn’t seem to yield a clear result.

 

[NoBoMac]

Just add a user for her. When she signs in, she finishes setup of the account by signing into her Apple ID. Done and done. Stuff won't cross-pollinate.

 

[Fishrrman]

Get her one of the new M2 MacBook Airs.
That oughta do it...

 

[zarmanto]

1) I don’t want my wife to have access to my E-Mails and messages; I don’t want access to hers either
2) I don’t want to download her messages, photos and such to this iMac - it would be great if I could give her account without ever entering her Apple ID on the account, but I could disable mail, messages, photos piecemeal if necessary

1) Your instincts are good: separate user accounts on the Mac will absolutely take care of this for you.

2) Are you looking to avoid taking up a bunch of space on your Mac with her stuff, or is there some other objective herein? Either way, I feel like what you're describing best matches Apple's "parental restriction" features, and I don't know for sure if those can be applied successfully to another adult account. Worse though, if your wife were to ever discover that you're using parental restrictions on her... in that scenario, I would pray for your safety and sanity.

Another option is to not actually log her into her iCloud account at the system level at all; just set her up with a local-only account and from there, log her into the iCloud website by way of Safari. It won't give her the "full Mac experience", but it should be good enough for the basics, and she can go back to her own computer and/or iPad for the rest of her workflow.