Due to the robust security within Apple’s new macOS operating system, there is a high emphasis on data protection. Whether you’re simply logging in, downloading new software, or trying to delete files or apps from the hard drive, you will always need to input your Mac password. Here are a few ways you can remember or reset it and get back to using your Mac.
How to avoid forgetting passwords?
Often when Mac users forget their passwords, it’s the consequence of having a cluttered Mac. With an overload of information to sieve through every day, people have a tendency to forget information. So, first and foremost, you should clean up your Mac to make sure your new password is the one entering you into a tidy and organised computer.
Recover Your Apple ID - Apple. Reset your Mac login password. Sometimes a login password needs to be reset—for example, if you have forgotten the login password and can’t use a password hint to remember it. When a user’s login password is reset, a new default keychain is created to store the user’s passwords. Luckily, there is an alternative solution to recovering your password. Use Recovery Mode. Apple provides a tool to replace a Mac’s password through bypassing all of the previous steps. This is the best option if you don’t have a password hint, can’t log in via another account and have completely forgotten your password. Turn off your Mac.
Reset password with Apple ID. If you have an Apple ID tied to your user account on Mac, you can use it to reset password from the login window. The option should be available by default. Otherwise, you can enable it in System Preferences Users & Groups Allows user to reset password using Apple ID. Use One Admin Account to Reset Another Admin Account. Since Mac OS X 10.4, Apple.
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How to reset a password
Get a password hint
Before resetting your password, you should always check to see if the password hint jogs your memory. The ‘hint’ is a phrase you entered relating to the password when you first set it up, and is triggered once you make 3 incorrect password attempts:
- Open System Preferences (the app with the cog icon).
- Select ‘Users & Groups.’
- Click the Lock icon in the bottom left to make changes.
- Press the Return key 3 times.
The screen will shake each time you press Return, with the third shake generating the password hint which will appear below the Password field. Hopefully this initiates a Eureka Moment making you remember the Login and brings an end to the password perils.
Sometimes though, the hint doesn’t show up. That’s because the Mac wasn’t set up to show password hints in the Login Options – only modified by logging into your Mac. Fortunately, there are an array of other solutions to finding your password.
Change password from another account
In the event that you happen to share your Mac with another person, and they have their own account, you can use their Login to reset your password. Or, if you have a different account on the Mac that you know the password to, you can recover your Mac admin password by following these steps:
- Click on the Apple logo in the top left of the tools bar and click Log Out.
- Select the alternative account and enter the password.
- Open System Preferences > Users & Groups.
- Click the Lock icon in the bottom left.
- Enter the password again.
- In the Sidebar, select the account with the missing password.
- Click change password.
- Fill in the New Password, Verify and Password Hint fields.
- Click Change Password.
Now, the password for that account has been changed, allowing you to log in using the new password. However, this doesn’t change the password for the Keychain (macOS’s password management system), and you’ll be asked when you log into the account to update the keychain password. This requires you to enter the old forgotten password, so you’ll have to click ‘Create New Keychain’.
This introduces a further problem, because if the other user isn’t the registered Admin, they won’t be able to change the password for you. Luckily, there is an alternative solution to recovering your password.
Use Recovery Mode
Apple provides a tool to replace a Mac’s password through bypassing all of the previous steps. This is the best option if you don’t have a password hint, can’t log in via another account and have completely forgotten your password.
- Turn off your Mac.
- Press the power button whilst holding Command + R.
- The Mac will boot into Recovery Mode – when you see the load bar appear you can let go of the keys.
- Select ‘Disk Utility’ and press Continue.
- Go to Utilities > Terminal.
- Enter ‘resetpassword’ and press the Return key.
- Select the main hard drive.
- Select the User Account (the account you’d like to change).
- Enter a new password and create a password hint.
- Click Save – a warning will appear that the Keychain Password hasn’t changed. Click OK.
- Shut Down your Mac and start it up again. Now you can log in using the new password.
Protect Your Data
Due to the fact Recovery Mode provides a nifty means to resetting the Mac password, you may be wary that anyone can hack your Mac – and once someone accesses your Mac, you’ve usually lost control over it. So, it’s a good job there’s some interventions you can make to prevent this happening.
The best way to protect your data is to active FileVault encryption. This means that the Password Reset option won’t become available unless you unlock it with Disk Utility. To turn it on and set it up:
- Choose Apple > System Preferences > Security & Privacy.
- Click the FileVault tab.
- Click the Lock icon, and enter Login credentials.
- Click Turn on FileVault.
Once done, you will receive a Recovery Key and a password, which you should take note of. If you lose these, your data won’t be able to be recovered and will be lost forever.
Another effective way to protect the data on your Mac is to download tried and tested app CleanMyMac X. With automatic clean-ups and regular system monitors, your data is continuously observed and safeguarded from any piracy or hacking.
Use Target Disk Mode
If all else fails, Target Disk Mode can help you recover whatever you can from the lost Mac. Using another Mac, you can access the hard drive on the lost Mac and save any wanted data.
- Shut down the Mac.
- Connect to another Mac using a FireWire or Thunderbolt cable.
- Start up your Mac and hold the T key while it loads.
- This activates Target Disk Mode.
The hard drive from the lost Mac should now appear, allowing you to recover and save wanted data onto the new Mac.
Thanks for reading and stay tuned!
I Forgot My Password
These might also interest you:
More than four years ago, Alicia Katz Pollock wrote “Five Ways to Reset a Lost Administrator Password” (17 January 2014), and through the vagaries of Google’s search algorithm, it remains our most popular article to this day. Apparently, lots of people forget their macOS passwords or need to help friends or clients who have lost their passwords.
Unfortunately, that article is long past its shelf life, so here’s a current guide to resetting an admin password in macOS 10.13 High Sierra. As before, you can accomplish this task in a variety of ways, depending on how the Mac in question was set up and what information you know.
Reset the Password from Another Admin Account
The best-case scenario is that there is another admin account on the Mac for which the password is available. If that’s true, you can log into that account and change the password for the locked account:
- Open System Preferences > Users & Groups.
- Select the locked account in the list at the left. (If necessary, click the lock at the bottom of the window and provide your admin credentials.)
- Click Reset Password.
- Enter the new password, verify it, and (optionally) include a password hint.
- Click Change Password.
The only problem with this method is if the locked-out account is logged in, you can’t modify it. The easy solution is to restart the Mac, log in with the admin account whose password you do know, and carry on from there. To forcibly log out the other user while rebooting, you have to enter an admin username and password.
If you don’t currently have an extra admin account on the Macs you take care of, it’s a good idea to create one. Just make sure it has a strong password that you’ll remember.
Reset the Password Using an Apple ID
What if there is no other admin account available? You can use the Apple ID associated with the account in question to reset the admin password, but only if these conditions are true:
- You know the Apple ID’s email address and password. If you don’t know the password, but you have access to the email address, you can reset the password at Apple’s Apple ID page.
- The “Allow user to reset password using Apple ID” checkbox in System Preferences > Users & Groups must be selected. This setting won’t appear if FileVault is enabled.
To get to the point in the login process where you can reset the password, click the question mark that appears on the right side of the password field or just try to log in three times. After the third failed login attempt, the Mac will prompt you with the password reminder, if one is set, and give you the option of resetting the password using your Apple ID.
Then enter the Apple ID email address and password and follow the onscreen instructions.
Reset the Password Using the Reset Password Assistant
If the “Allow user to reset password using Apple ID” option isn’t enabled, or the previous method doesn’t work, there’s still a way to use Apple ID credentials to reset the admin password. You’ll need to use Apple’s Reset Password assistant, which requires that you reboot into macOS Recovery and use Terminal:
- To enter macOS Recovery, restart the Mac. As it’s starting up, press and hold Command-R until you see the Apple logo, at which point you can let go.
- Once in macOS Recovery, ignore the main window and choose Utilities > Terminal, which opens a Terminal window.
- In that window, type
resetpassword
and press Return to open the Reset Password assistant.
Either way, once you’re in the Reset Password assistant, select “I Forgot My Password” and click Next.
If the account for which you wish to reset the password is a standard account, rather than an admin account, all you have to do is enter a new password.
For an admin account, you’ll instead have to enter the password for the account’s associated Apple ID. (If you don’t know it, you can click “Forgot Apple ID or password?” to move on to the Apple ID recovery process, which may require your trusted phone numbers.) Once you have entered the necessary password, you may be prompted for a two-factor authentication verification code, which will arrive on another device connected to that Apple ID. (If the Mac is your only Apple device, you should be able to receive the code from a phone call or SMS text message.) Finally, you’ll get to a screen where you can enter a new password and password hint.
What If You Use FileVault?
FileVault encrypts the Mac’s boot volume, making it readable only after the appropriate login credentials are entered, typically those of the primary admin account. The process for resetting the admin password changes a bit if FileVault is turned on because FileVault eliminates the option to reset the password with Apple ID credentials.
Fortunately, the method remains simple: enter a random password three times at the login screen, after which you’ll be prompted to reset the password using your Apple ID or recovery key.
Apple notes that you may still have trouble logging in with the new password after all this, and if so, suggests that you use the Reset Password assistant to reset the password again, using the “My password doesn’t work when logging in” option and following the subsequent instructions.
I hope your FileVault recovery key is stored in a safe place, like 1Password or LastPass! If it wasn’t saved or you can’t access it, you may want to turn off FileVault before you get into a situation where you can’t log into the Mac. In my experience, it’s easier to back up the drive, erase it, and then restore it, than it is to turn off FileVault.
Dealing with the Keychain
The keychain is an encrypted container associated with each user account that stores login credentials for apps, network servers, AirPort base stations, and Web sites accessed in Safari. It’s easy to forget about the keychain because it is typically protected by the same password used to log in to the account. As a result, resetting the password for an admin account means that you can no longer access the keychain for that account. Sorry, but there’s no way to recover that information.
After resetting the admin password and logging in again, you will likely receive an alert that macOS was unable to unlock your login keychain. Click Create New Keychain to start fresh. If you don’t receive the alert and have problems with the keychain, follow these steps to reset it:
- Open Keychain Access from
/Applications/Utilities
. - Choose Keychain Access > Preferences and click Reset My Default Keychains, which creates a new keychain with no password.
- Log out of the account by choosing Apple > Log Out Username.
- Log back into the account to tie the account password to the new keychain.
Don’t Reset Passwords Willy-Nilly
![Forgot My Password For Mac Forgot My Password For Mac](/uploads/1/1/9/8/119877812/324669968.jpg)
![Forgot My Password For Mac Forgot My Password For Mac](/uploads/1/1/9/8/119877812/915928174.jpg)
As you can see, there are a variety of ways that you can reset a lost or forgotten admin password and regain access to a Mac, although they all depend on knowing either another admin password or an Apple ID password.
However, don’t reset an admin password unless doing so is absolutely necessary because the login keychain will be lost in the process, and that will likely cause future annoyance.
Mac Forgot Password Admin
If you’re not yet in this situation, take precautionary measures now! Be sure that your Macs’ passwords and any FileVault recovery keys are stored in secure locations that you—and other trusted users—can access easily. And of course, make sure to keep regular backups, which can help you recover from a multitude of sins.