Boot the system from the Mac OS X installation CD and select the Reset password option from the installer screen and follow the directions. If you do not have an administrator password, either, you can still reset the root password.

Select Macintosh HD Data from the side bar and choose to Mount the Data drive. Enter a new password, confirm the new password, set a password hint (recommended) and then click on Next. Hit the return key to launch the Reset Password tool, then choose the user account or admin account you want to reset the password for. At the macOS Utilities screen, open Disk Utility. At the MacOS Utilities screen, pull down the Utilities menu and choose Terminal. The command we are running is passwd root which is the command to change the password for the root user. Boot the Mac into Recovery Mode by restarting the Mac and holding down Command+R (Intel Macs) or the Power button (M1 Macs) For M1 Macs, choose Options at the boot menu that appears. In this case, since the user account is considered an administrator, the sudo command allows you (after confirming that you are who you say you are with the user password) to run a command as if you were root. The sudo command is a helpful way to control who can do what on a system. Then you will be prompted for the new root password twice. You will be prompted for your password (the user account that you do remember). Open a terminal window and type the following: If you have the password to an account that is an administrator on the system, then it is easy to recover the password using the sudo command. The easiest way to locate the original admin account password is to click on the admin account to select it and click the lock in the lower corner of the screen. Forgetting the root password on a Mac system can seem devastating, but this tech-recipe will show an easy way to recover. Most people have a hard time remembering these and will eventually forget one. Mac OS X Recover Lost Root Passwordįor the sake of security, having unique, complex passwords is recommended. Mac OS X Recover Lost Root Password 32.5.

Recover admin password mac