Now let’s move on to resetting the password!ġ: Use the Command Line - In early versions of Mac OS X, the command line was the best way to reset a forgotten administrator password.
When the Mac comes back up, Mac OS X should create a new login keychain. Now enter this command to delete that account’s login keychain, replacing shortname appropriately: rm /Users/shortname/Library/Keychains/login.keychain.Figure out the shortname of the account you want to reset by looking through the list that results from typing this command: ls /Users.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 /.Numerous lines of status messages will scroll by. Reboot into Single User mode by restarting the Mac and holding Command-S while the system comes back up.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: 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.
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. Which you should use depends on the specific version of Mac OS X, and how the Mac is set up.īut first, there’s an important caveat about any of these methods, related to the login keychain. Let’s explore all the options to reset a password. 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. 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.
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. This article is over four years old and some details have changed.įor up-to-date help, read “ Three Ways to Reset a Lost Admin Password in High Sierra” (5 July 2018). #1603: Replacing a 27-inch iMac, Luna Display turns a 27-inch iMac into a 5K display, OWC's affordable Thunderbolt 4 cables.#1604: Universal Control how-to, show proxy icons in Monterey, Eat Your Books cookbook index.#1605: OS updates with security and bug fixes, April Fools article retrospective, Audio Hijack 4, 5G home Internet.#1606: Apple's self-sabotaging App Store policies, edit Slack messages easily, WWDC 2022 dates.#1607: TidBITS 32nd anniversary, moving from 1Password to KeePass, pasting plain text, Mail fixes anchor links, RIP Eolake.Open that app from your Applications folder to start installing the operating system. Safari will download the following older installers as a disk image named InstallOS.dmg or InstallMacOSX.dmg.