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Remember the ancient days of Mac operating systems when Mac OS X was sold on a “DVD”.

User misplaces or forgets the administrator password in those days then they used to insert disc and set a new password for their OS to access it again.

This idea doesn’t work now as there is no DVD attached to OS XS which raises the need for an alternative to be used in this case.

Alternatives are either very techie or very simple, technical ways can make you feel nervous if you are novice in term of technology.

First the list starts with these easy steps.

  1. First alternative is using your “Apple ID”

When a user first set up Mac or upgrade OS then they can allow their Apple ID to reset their user name or admin password. The path is System Preferences > Users& Group.

apple id

Even if you forget the password and tries for third time, user will receive a message of forgot password and reset using Apple ID.  Tap on the arrow-in-circle and press reset in the dialog box. User can simply enter Apple ID and then password and click -» Reset Password.

The worst scenario is when you deselect the box and later you forget the password. Apple ID is to be kept safe as it can give hackers all your information and data if password is compromised.

  1. Different Admin Account

If you have set up your Mac with two different accounts which means user have two administrator accounts which is highly suggested, user can use second account to login and reset the password for first account. If this doesn’t work then user can look out for next technique.

  1. Third way out is Recovery Partition

If you could not help yourself with above stated ways then User can make use of OS X Recovery partition. .

Recovery Partition is hidden in boot drive. This got introduced with OS X 10.6 Lion, 10.8 Mountain Lion, OS X 10.9 Mavericks and OS X 10.10 Yosemite. The above stated method works well with OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard and Previous. Snow Leopard is still not updated by Apple. If you have installed OS X on Mac then you would be identified as administrator.

To reset password follow this procedure.

Restart your Mac system. if you find it locked up then look for an article with title Frozen: How to force the restart of a Mac.

After a while you will hear sound of chime, press and hold R key and command keys for a while and release after some time. Apple logo and spinning gear depicting progress in Yosemite.

These R keys will force Mac to boot into OSX in Recovery Partition was created when you installed OS X 10.7 or Later. Once booting is done then you will see a pop up window of OS X Utilities , go to Menu bar which is at the top and tap on utilities >Terminal.

OS X

                                                      Icons displayed after booting is done into Recovery Partition.
(No screen shots available at this point, so I used my iPhone.)

4. Type Reset password in terminal window and click return.

5. Once you hit return a window will open and show

 

Yosmite

 

                                                              This you will see when you reset a password.

 

Tap on following options

Volume of interest and select the desired user name you wanted to keep in the pop-up. Think of a secure password which adhere to security norms and fill password twice. You can go for password hint as well in case you forget the password. Click on Save.

  1. Once you finish these password steps, scroll back to Apple Menu which is at Top.

Select then OS X Utilities > Quit OS X Utilities. . It will initiate a prompt restart of Mac.

The Mac will start normally if all the steps are performed well and you will be capable to log in to administrator’s account with newly created password and username.

You can control the rest of settings through System Preferences >Users & Group.

  1. Next in the list is Keychain Rest

Keychain is the place in OS X which stores the password securely. If you forget your password, you need not to access keychain, you simply reset keychain, and once you will create a new keychain you can unlock a new password.

  1. Once you create id and password you can read Apple support Articles

Hope these article is usefull for you!

 

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