What Is My Apple Administrator Password

• What Is My Apple Administrator Password Forgot
• What Is My Apple Administrator Password Manager
• What Is My Apple Administrator Password Change

If you know the name and password of an admin account on your Mac, you can use that account to reset the password. Log in with the name and password of the other admin account. Choose System Preferences from the Apple menu, then click Users & Groups. Click, then enter the admin name and password again. Select your user name from the list of users. Now your locked PC will boot from password reset utility boot drive. Step 4: Reset your PC password. Once your PC boots USB drive finishes, the PCUnlocker launch automatically. Here you will see; Select a recovery mode: choose a Local Admin/User password. SAM registry file: By default, it is selected. User account: Choose Administrator. Or see Reset a Mac OS X 10.7 Lion Password, OS X Mountain Lion- Reset a login password, and OS X Lion- Apple ID can be used to reset your user account password. For Snow Leopard and earlier with installer DVD Mac OS X 10.6- If you forget your administrator password For Snow Leopard and earlier without installer DVD. Jul 26, 2017 A question mark will appear in the password field along with a popup box saying, “If you forgot your password, you can reset it using your Apple ID”. Choose to reset your password using your Apple ID. Enter your Apple ID login information. Create a new admin password. Reboot your computer. Enter the new password to log in to your admin account.

The password of your macOS user account is also known as your login password. It's the password that you use to log in to your Mac and make certain changes, such as installing software.

Change your password

If you know your password and can use it to log in to your account, you can change your password in Users & Groups preferences:

1. Choose System Preferences from the Apple menu, then click Users & Groups.
2. Select your user name from the list of users.
3. Click the Change Password button, then follow the onscreen instructions.

Reset your password

If you don't remember your password, or it isn't working, you might be able to reset it using one of the methods described below. But first try these simpler solutions:

• Make sure that you're typing the correct uppercase or lowercase characters. If your keyboard has Caps Lock turned on, the password field shows a Caps Lock symbol .
• If the password field shows a question mark, click it to display a password hint that might help you to remember.
• Try to log in without a password. If that works, you can then add a password by following the steps to change your password.
• Try to log in with the Apple ID password that you use for iCloud. If you just changed that password and the new password isn't working, try the old password first. If that works, you should be able to use the new password from then on.

Reset using your Apple ID

In some macOS versions, you can use your Apple ID to reset your login password. At the login screen, keep entering a password until you see a message saying that you can reset your password using Apple ID. If you don't see the message after three attempts, your account isn't set up to allow resetting with Apple ID.

1. Click next to the Apple ID message, then follow the onscreen instructions to enter your Apple ID and create a new password. You'll be asked to restart when done.
2. Log in with your new password.
3. Determine whether to create a new login keychain.

Reset using another admin account

If you know the name and password of an admin account on your Mac, you can use that account to reset the password.

1. Log in with the name and password of the other admin account.
2. Choose System Preferences from the Apple menu, then click Users & Groups.
3. Click , then enter the admin name and password again.
4. Select your user name from the list of users.
5. Click the Reset Password button, then follow the onscreen instructions to create a new password:
   
6. Choose Log Out from the Apple menu.
7. Log in to your account using your new password.
8. Determine whether to create a new login keychain.

Reset using the Reset Password assistant (FileVault must be on)

If FileVault is turned on, you might be able to reset your password using the Reset Password assistant:

1. Wait up to a minute at the login screen, until you see a message saying that you can use the power button on your Mac to shut down and start up again in Recovery OS. If you don't see this message, FileVault isn't on.
2. Press and hold the power button until your Mac turns off.
3. Press the power button again to turn on your Mac.
4. When the Reset Password window appears, follow the onscreen instructions to create a new password.
   If you need to connect to Wi-Fi, move your pointer to the top of the screen and use the Wi-Fi menu to connect. To exit without resetting your password, choose Apple menu > Restart.
   
5. When done, click Restart.
6. If you were able to reset your password with the Reset Password assistant, log in to your account using your new password.
7. Determine whether to create a new login keychain.

Reset using your Recovery Key (FileVault must be on)

If FileVault is turned on and you have a FileVault Recovery Key, you can use that key to reset your password.

1. At the login screen, keep entering a password until you see a message saying that you can reset your password using your Recovery Key. If you don't see the message after three attempts, FileVault isn't on.
   
2. Click next to the message. The password field changes to a Recovery Key field.
3. Enter your Recovery Key. Use uppercase characters, and include the hyphens.
4. Follow the onscreen instructions to create a new password, then click Reset Password when done.
5. Determine whether to create a new login keychain.

If you can't log in with your new password after restarting your Mac, take these additional steps:

1. Restart again, then immediately hold down Command-R or one of the other macOS Recovery key combinations until you see the Apple logo or a spinning globe.
2. When you see the macOS Utilities window, choose Utilities > Terminal from the menu bar.
3. In the Terminal window, type resetpassword, then press Return to open the Reset Password assistant pictured above.
4. Select ”My password doesn't work when logging in,” then click Next and follow the onscreen instructions for your user account.

Create a new login keychain, if necessary

After resetting your password and logging back in to your account, you might see an alert that the system was unable to unlock your login keychain. This is expected, because the passwords for your user account and login keychain no longer match. Just click the Create New Keychain button in the alert.

If you didn't see an alert about your login keychain, or you see other messages asking for your old password, reset your keychain manually:

1. Open Keychain Access, which is in the Utilities folder of your Applications folder.
2. Choose Preferences from the Keychain Access menu, then click the Reset My Default Keychain button in the preferences window. After you enter your new password, Keychain Access creates an empty login keychain with no password. Click OK to confirm.
   If you don't see a Reset My Default keychain button, close the preferences window and select the “login” keychain from the left side of the Keychain Access window. Press the Delete key, then click Delete References.
   
3. Choose Log Out from the Apple menu to return to the login screen.
4. Log in to your account using your new password. Your account password and login keychain password now match again.

If you still can't log in

If you still can't log in with your password, contact Apple Support for help.

This article is over four years old and some details have changed.For up-to-date help, read “Three Ways to Reset a Lost Admin Password in High Sierra” (5 July 2018).

Several years ago, I was helping a client upgrade her Mac running Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, but she couldn’t remember her administrator password. Because she also couldn’t find the original system CDs that shipped with her iMac, I had to resort to some advanced techniques few home users would ever be able to figure out.

Starting with 10.7 Lion, you could still call on all those options, but Apple added a method so easy that even an inexperienced user can do it — the Apple ID-based password reset. Let’s explore all the options to reset a password. Which you should use depends on the specific version of Mac OS X, and how the Mac is set up.

But first, there’s an important caveat about any of these methods, related to the login keychain.

Reset Login Keychain Password — No matter which of these methods you use to reset a forgotten administrator password, it won’t update the password protecting the account’s login keychain, which stores all of the user’s passwords. Since the keychain is protected by the now-forgotten administrator password, there’s no way to get back into it. Newer versions of Mac OS X may prompt about this problem at startup; otherwise you’ll need to delete the keychain and start it over again, using these steps:

1. 1. Open Keychain Access from /Applications/Utilities, and choose Keychain Access > Preferences (Command-,).
   2. In newer versions of Mac OS X, you’ll see a button labeled Reset My Default Keychain in the General pane. If you have that button, click it to remove the old keychain and create a new one with the new password.
   3. If that button is not present, choose Edit > Keychain List (Command-Option-L), select the login keychain, and click the minus button to delete it.

1. Quit Keychain Access and restart the Mac. A new login keychain will start collecting and storing the passwords for Wi-Fi networks, email accounts, Web sites, and other logins as they occur.

If you can’t work with Keychain Access because of something like Messages Agent constantly asking for the forgotten login keychain password, you’ll have to resort to the command line, with these steps:

1. Reboot into Single User mode by restarting the Mac and holding Command-S while the system comes back up. Numerous lines of status messages will scroll by.
2. Once you have a command-line prompt, enter this command to mount the root Mac OS X drive as writable, so you can make changes to the filesystem:mount -uw /
3. Figure out the shortname of the account you want to reset by looking through the list that results from typing this command:ls /Users
4. Now enter this command to delete that account’s login keychain, replacing shortname appropriately:rm /Users/shortname/Library/Keychains/login.keychain
5. Restart the Mac by typing:reboot

When the Mac comes back up, Mac OS X should create a new login keychain.

Now let’s move on to resetting the password!

1: Use the Command Line — In early versions of Mac OS X, the command line was the best way to reset a forgotten administrator password. Even now, command-line password reset remains available, making it the most universal approach that will work in any situation. If you’re not turned off by typing highly specific commands, follow these steps:

1. 1. Make a note of the user account shortname by opening the Home folder (in the Finder, choose Go > Home) and checking the folder name at the top of the window. If you can’t get into the account at all, you can determine the shortname later on.

1. Reboot into Single User mode by restarting the Mac and holding Command-S while the system comes back up. A lot of arcane status messages scroll by, and leave you with a command-line prompt.
2. Mount the root Mac OS X drive as writable, so you can make changes to the filesystem, with this command:mount -uw /
3. For those running 10.7 Lion, 10.8 Mountain Lion, or 10.9 Mavericks, enter this command at the prompt to load Open Directory (which manages user accounts) manually, since it was deprecated in Lion:launchctl load /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.opendirectoryd.plistSkip this step if you’re running 10.6 Snow Leopard or earlier.
4. If you don’t know the shortname of the account you want to reset, look through the list that results from typing this command:ls /Users
5. Next, enter the following command, replacing “shortname” with the desired account’s shortname:dscl . -passwd /Users/shortnameIf you get this error message, you may ignore it:launchctl: Couldn’t stat(“/System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.DirectoryServicesLocal.plist”):No such file or directory nothing found to load
6. Type in the new password.
7. Restart the Mac by typing:reboot

2: Use One Account to Reset Another — Since 10.4 Tiger, if a Mac had multiple administrator accounts, you could log into one account to reset the password in another. This remains possible, and is one of the reasons that many people who are responsible for the Macs of less-experienced users will often create a separate administrator-level account for troubleshooting. Here are the steps you need to follow to use this approach, assuming you have the necessary access:

1. 1. While logged in an administrator account in which you know the password, open the Users & Groups pane of System Preferences (it was called Accounts before 10.7 Lion).
   2. Select the name of the user whose password you want to change, and click the Reset Password button. (You may need to click the lock icon in the lower left of the window and enter an administrator password to be able to make changes.)

1. 1. Enter the new password, the same password again for verification, and a hint in case it’s forgotten again.

3: Use the Installer CD or DVD — Up through 10.6 Snow Leopard, if the Mac had only the original administrator account, and resetting the password via the command line was too scary, you could use the original Mac OS X Install disc instead. (Actual snow leopards may be endangered, but installer discs went extinct with 10.7 Lion, so this method is only for older Macs.) Here’s how:

1. With the Mac turned off, power it up, insert the disc immediately, and hold down the C key to make the Mac boot from the disc’s version of Mac OS X.
2. From the Utilities menu at the top of the screen (or the Installer menu in 10.3 Panther), choose Reset Password.
3. Select the hard disk volume, and the name of the original administrator account. (Stay away from the Root account.)
4. Enter the new password, and then click Save.
5. Quit the Mac OS X Installer, and restart the Mac normally.

Apple provides a support document with more details, along with instructions for Mac OS X 10.1 through 10.3, should you run into such an ancient setup.

4: Use the Recovery Partition — Starting with 10.7 Lion, which was sold only through the Mac App Store, the installer disc was replaced by the Recovery partition, a small chunk of the boot disk that contains a stripped-down version of Mac OS X and essential utilities. To reset the administrator password when running Lion or later:

What Is My Apple Administrator Password Forgot

1. Restart the Mac while holding down the Option key, and double-click the icon for the Recovery partition. A Mac OS X Utilities screen appears.
2. Choose Utilities > Terminal.
3. In Terminal, type resetpassword. Rather unusually for a task performed from the command line, a graphical Reset Password window appears.
4. Select the startup volume at the top of the window, and then choose a user account from the pop-up menu. In the fields below, enter the new password, confirm it, and add an appropriate hint.
5. Click Save, and then choose Restart from the Apple menu.

5: Use Your Apple ID — Starting with 10.7 Lion, it also became possible to use your Apple ID to reset your administrator password. It’s turned on by default in the Users & Groups pane of System Preferences, but double-check to make sure.

When this feature is active, if you enter the administrator password incorrectly at the login window three times, a popover appears with the password hint and a message saying “If you forgot your password, you can reset it using your Apple ID.” Here’s how to do that:

1. Click the arrow icon to open the Reset Password dialog.
2. Enter your Apple ID and its password, then click Reset Password to proceed.
3. Enter a new administrator password, verify it, and fill in the Hint field so that you’ll get a memory trigger the next time you forget.
4. Click Reset Password, and you’re done.

If you’ve also forgotten your Apple ID password, you can reset that at Apple’s My Apple ID page. Doing so relies on having access to the email address associated with your Apple ID; if that email account could be compromised, allowing the administrator password to be reset by the Apple ID might provide a way that the physical security of your Mac could be attacked. If you’re really worried, turn the feature off in the Users & Groups preference pane.

One quirk. If you upgraded from 10.6 Snow Leopard to 10.7 Lion, you may not get the reset message after three incorrect attempts. To fix this problem while you can still access the account, open the Users & Groups preference pane, delete the affected Apple ID, and then add the same Apple ID back.

What Is My Apple Administrator Password Manager

It’s also important to know that encrypting your Mac’s boot disk with FileVault 2 prevents you from using your Apple ID to reset your password (since the password is used in FileVault’s encryption). Read this Apple support document for more information about FileVault.

What Is My Apple Administrator Password Change

No Excuse for a Lost Password — Regardless of how or why an administrator password has been lost or forgotten, there are a variety of techniques that you can use to reset it and regain full access to a Mac. These techniques aren’t to be used willy-nilly, since the login keychain will be lost in the process, but whether the simple method of using an Apple ID is sufficient or you need to drop down to the command line, you should be able to get the access you need.

What Is My Apple Administrator Password