#What to do if i forgot my administrator password mac full#
#What to do if i forgot my administrator password mac password#

#What to do if i forgot my administrator password mac password#

Starting with macOS Lion, you can reset your login password using your Apple ID (and if at this point you’re panicking because you’ve forgot the password for your Apple ID, then head over to the Recover Your Apple ID page).Īs we’ve already seen, entering an incorrect password three times on the login screen will display a password hint, but you may have noticed that it also displays a ‘Reset using your Apple ID’ popup.

Click the padlock icon again to save your changes.

Select the ‘Show password hints’ checkbox.

Click the little padlock icon and enter your password.

Navigate to ‘System Preferences > Users & Groups.’.

Clearly, this isn’t something you can currently do, but once you have successfully logged into your account, I’d recommend enabling this feature just in case you ever forget your password again: If it’s the latter, then bad news: you need to enter your password in order to enable the password hint feature. If macOS doesn’t display a password hint, then you either didn’t create one or this feature isn’t enabled on your Mac.

Either press the ‘Enter’ key on your keyboard three times, or enter an incorrect password three times, and the hint will appear.

Click the little padlock icon, which launches the password dialogue.

Click the ‘Apple’ logo in the toolbar, and select ‘System Preferences…’.

If you’re struggling to remember your admin password:

MacOS will display the password hint automatically after you’ve entered an incorrect password three times on the login screen, but you can also trigger this hint manually by clicking the little ‘?’ icon that appears alongside the password field. Hopefully, when you created your admin or login password, you also created a password hint, as this can be invaluable for jogging your memory. Note that if you do reset your password, then you’ll need to create a new Keychain file the first time you use this new password – this something I’ll be covering towards the end of this article. In this article I’m going to share several techniques that you can use to recover or reset your Mac’s password, including using macOS’ built-in password reset utility.

#What to do if i forgot my administrator password mac full#

Regardless of whether you’ve lost your login password or your admin password (or whether you use the same password for both tasks) there’s several ways that you can regain full access to your Mac – so don’t panic! As soon as you realise that you can’t remember your admin password, you should take steps to recover it – even if you don’t need it right now. Whether it’s installing, deleting or changing important apps or files making changes to your system settings or updating to the latest version of macOS, sooner or later you’re going to have to enter your admin password.

Adding a password to your Mac is essential for helping to keep your sensitive files and personal information safe from prying eyes, but what happens if you forget or lose this password? Does it mean you can never log into your Mac again?Įven if you haven’t password-protected your Mac’s login screen (and if you haven’t, then you really should) every Mac has an admin password, and there’s a wide range of tasks that require you to enter this password.