How to reset Mac root password

Reset 10.5 Leopard & 10.6 Snow Leopard Password

2. Power on or restart your Mac.
4. At the chime (or grey-screen if your chime are turned off), hold-down command+s on your keyboard to enter Single-user mode.
6. This was 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.
8. Type Mount-uw/and press Enter.
10. Type launchctl load/system/library/launchdaemons/com.apple.directoryservices.plist and press Enter.
12. Type ls/users and press Enter. This lists any of the usernames on the computer–helpful if you don ' t know or remember what these is.
14. Type DSCL.-passwd/users/username password and replace "username" with one of the Users displayed in the Previo US step. Replace "Password" with a new password of your choice. Press Enter.
16. Type reboot and press Enter.

Reset 10.4 Tiger Password

1. Power on or restart your Mac.
2. At the chime (or grey-screen if your chime are turned off), hold-down command+s on your keyboard to enter Single-user mode.
3. Type SH/ETC/RC and press Enter/return.
4. Type passwd username and replace "username" with the short name of the the user account for which your ' d like to reset The password.
5. Type your desired password and press Enter. It won ' t show itself on the screens, so is careful what you type. You'll most likely has to enter it again to confirm.
6. Type reboot and press Enter.

Tricking your Mac into creating a new user account

1. Power on or restart your Mac (should work for any Mac OS X system).
2. At the chime (or grey-screen if your chime are turned off), hold-down command+s on your keyboard to enter Single-user mode.
3. This was 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.
4. Type Mount-uw/and press Enter.
5. Type rm/var/db/. Applesetupdone and press Enter.
6. 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 both methods do, this one fools the operating system into Believ ing it has never been started before. This means if you restart the machine, it'll take your through the entire setup & registration process all over Aga In. Do not worry, all of your pre-existing data is still available. Just continue with this process and does not choose the option to transfer or migrate information to the MAC.

Once you ' re do, log in with your new admin account and go to System Preferences > Accounts. You could have a 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 the them to convert it to a standard user account (uncheck "Allow user to administer this computer") an D Change the password. You should is able to successfully log on to the account now and access all of your files and programs. If you want, you can log on with your new admin account and re-check the ' Allow user to administer this computer ' opt Ion in System Preferences to grant admin privileges to the original user again.

That should cover it! As always, the remember messing with Single-user mode and Terminal are risky and may leads to trouble if your make mistakes. Considering you ' re already locked out of the computer, though, you ' ll probably is willing to take your chances at this POI Nt.

One last thing ... if you had a Keychain Access password, you would probably need to reset this as well. 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 have able to start fresh and add new ones.

Reset Password using Lion Recovery

If you bought a brand new Mac with Lion pre-installed, the hard drive includes with a recovery partition this gives you AC Cess to a bunch of different tools. Here's how to take advantage of this utility to reset your Mac ' s password:

1. Shut down your Mac and turn it back in while holding down the Command and R keys at the same time until You see the Lion Recovery.
2. From the menu bar at the top, select Utilities > Terminal.
3. In the Terminal window type resetpassword and press Enter.
4. Use the Reset Password utility to select your hard drive, choose your user account, and enter a new Password.

Reset Lion password with single User mode

Anyone running Mac OS X Lion can take advantage of this method:

2. Shut down your Mac and turn it back in while holding down the Command and S keys at the same time until Your see a black screens with white text. This is known as a single User mode.
4. You can skip this step, but it's recommended so you don ' t because it would check the consistency of your hard drive. At the prompt, type fsck-fy and press Enter.
6. Once The disk check is complete and the prompt returns, type Mount-uw/ and press Enter.
8. Type launchctl load/system/library/launchdaemons/com.apple.opendirectoryd.plist and press Enter.
10. Type ls/users and press Enter. All of the usernames on the computer would be listed, which was helpful if you don ' t know or remember what these was.
12. Type DSCL. Passwd/users/username password while replacing username with one of the Users displayed in The previous step and replacing password with the new password of your choice. Press Enter. You'll likely get an error message on a file or directory not being Found–it's safe to ignore this.
14. Type reboot and press Enter.

How to reset Mac root password