Let’s say you totally forgot the password to log on to your Mac. Or maybe you purchased a used Mac from someone else and they’ve got it locked down. There are numerous ways to reset a password with no OS X discs.
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This tutorial may ruffle some feathers, but it addresses a topic that a ton of people ask about all the time. Yes, it’s startling to think that anyone could theoretically walk up to your computer and gain access within minutes. Before you go thinking that Mac OS X has a severe vulnerability that makes it less secure than other operating systems, think again. Anyone with physical access to your machine (whether it is Windows, Linux, or Mac) can eventually find a way in if they know what they’re doing. There are ways of bypassing nearly any security measure when a hacker is literally sitting right in front of your system.
The information here has previously been made available from many different sources online and is presented with the intention of helping people with legitimate reasons for resetting their Mac OS X password. A few of the methods floating around the Mac community have been compiled here in one easy-to-reference place. System admins responsible for supporting entire organizations and users who bought used Macs are the folks most likely to benefit from this.
Important Note:
This tutorial was written for Mac OS X 10.4, 10.5 and 10.6. Please check out the updated version of this post if you’re trying to reset the password on a Mac running 10.7 Lion or 10.8 Mountain Lion.
Reset 10.5 Leopard & 10.6 Snow Leopard password
Press the Command and R keys at the same time when the grey screen appears and hold them until you see the Apple logo. A small loading bar will appear under the logo. Sit tight as your system boots into Recovery Mode. Click the Utilities tab in the top menu bar, select Terminal, type resetpassword and press Enter.
- Power on or restart your Mac.
- At the chime (or grey screen if your chime is turned off), hold down Command+S on your keyboard to enter single-user mode.
- This step is optional, but it’s a good idea because it checks the consistency of the hard disk before moving on. At the prompt, type fsck -fy and press Enter/Return. Wait for the checks to complete before going to the next step.
- Type mount -uw / and press Enter.
- Type launchctl load /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.DirectoryServices.plist and press Enter.
- Type ls /Users and press Enter. This lists all of the usernames on the computer – helpful if you don’t know or remember what these are.
- Type dscl . -passwd /Users/username password and replace “username” with one of the users displayed in the previous step. Replace “password” with a new password of your choice. Press Enter.
- Type reboot and press Enter.
Reset 10.4 Tiger password
- Power on or restart your Mac. At the chime (or grey screen if your chime is turned off), hold down Command+S on your keyboard to enter single-user mode. Type sh /etc/rc and press Enter/Return. Type passwd username and replace “username” with the short name of the user account for which you’d like to reset the password.
- Aug 11, 2014 Whether your IT department locked down your Mac or you grabbed one from eBay that the seller forgot to “clean up”, you may encounter a big problem when trying to install software as a non-admin. Here’s a possible workaround. If you’re trying to install software on your Mac the first thing you should do is simply contact your IT department.
- Novation automap 3.7.4 download mac. Crack Mac OS X Administrator password - create new admin account Here is how you can create yourself an admin account without knowing the actual administrator password on Mac OS X. Basically, this means that a previous owner of the machine decided to lock it, and this lock will prevent you from booting to.
- Power on or restart your Mac.
- At the chime (or grey screen if your chime is turned off), hold down Command+S on your keyboard to enter single-user mode.
- Type sh /etc/rc and press Enter/Return.
- Type passwd username and replace “username” with the short name of the user account for which you’d like to reset the password.
- Type your desired password and press Enter. It won’t show itself on the screen, so be careful what you type. You will most likely have to enter it again to confirm.
- Type reboot and press Enter.
Tricking your Mac into creating a new user account
- Power on or restart your Mac (should work for any Mac OS X system).
- At the chime (or grey screen if your chime is turned off), hold down Command+S on your keyboard to enter single-user mode.
- This step is optional, but it’s a good idea because it checks the consistency of the hard disk before moving on. At the prompt, type fsck -fy and press Enter/Return. Wait for the checks to complete before going to the next step.
- Type mount -uw / and press Enter.
- Type rm /var/db/.AppleSetupDone and press Enter.
- Type shutdown -h now and press Enter.
The third method of resetting your Mac’s password requires some additional explanation. Rather than simply changing the password like the previous two methods do, this one fools the operating system into believing it has never been started before. This means when you restart the machine, it will take you through the entire setup & registration process all over again. Do not worry, all of your pre-existing data is still available. Just continue with this process and do not choose the option to transfer or migrate information to the Mac.
Once you’re done, log in with your new admin account and go to System Preferences > Accounts. You may have to click on the lock icon in the lower-left corner before making changes here. You should see your original user account(s) in the left column. Try clicking on one of them to convert it to a standard user account (uncheck “Allow user to administer this computer”) and change the password. You should be able to successfully log in to that account now and access all of your files and programs. If you want, you can log back in with your new admin account and re-check the “Allow user to administer this computer” option in System Preferences to grant admin privileges to the original user again.
That should cover it! As always, remember messing with single-user mode and Terminal is risky and may lead to trouble if you make mistakes. Considering you’re already locked out of the computer, though, you’ll probably be willing to take your chances at this point.
One last thing… if you have a Keychain Access password, you will probably need to reset that as well. You can do this by selecting “login” under Keychains on the left and choosing Delete from the Edit menu. You’ll lose everything in the Keychain, but you’ll now be able to start fresh and add new ones.
Creating new admin account is available in Users & Groups when you have admin privileges to access Mac. However, if you cannot sign in Mac, is it still allowed to create new admin account? Surely it is even though that is not so easy to do like in Users & Groups.
Create new admin account in single user mode when cannot sign in Mac
Single user mode is a special startup environment, which boots Mac to a terminal-like interface where users can run commands to do what they want on Mac, such as repairing startup drive or creating new admin account etc.
Step 1: Start Mac in single user mode.
To boot Mac in single user mode, just need to power on Mac and hold on Command + S. If you fail, try another time.

Step 2: Mount the startup drive.
While you see a command prompt in the form of a ':/ root#', type the command below to make files accessible in the startup drive. Press Enter to continue.
/sbin/mount –uw /
Step 3: Remove the file to force OS X to boot like the first time.

Now you have the privileges to remove the files from drive. Run the command below, and it will remove the necessary file that can recognize your Mac are not booted at the first time when Mac restarts.
rm /var/db/.applesetupdone
But once it is done, you can enter 'reboot' to restart Mac, and OS X would think that it is the first time you boot the currently installed OS X. So you can create new admin account during the setup process.
How To Download Without Admin Password Mac 10 9 5
Note: Don't worry about your data on Mac would be lost or damaged. It would just go through the system setup process again. Nothing would be changed on Mac besides the new settings you make in the process.
Step 4: Create new admin account in setup process.
Mac restarts and displays the Welcome to Mac screen. Follow the wizard to choose your location, set your keyboard, choose the way to transfer data, set your Apple ID and agree the terms and conditions. At last, you will be asked to create an account for mac.
1. Default name for this account has been shown there. Surely you can change it but do not use the same name as the old administrator on Mac. Otherwise, data about this account will be deleted from Mac.

2. Enter password and confirm it. Click Next and Mac will save these changes.
Few minutes later, Mac will reboot and sign in automatically with the account you just created. You have new admin account and could use it to reset forgotten admin password for Mac or do whatever troubleshooting steps.

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