Paras Chadha

Forgot your OSX password?

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Windows is known for several ways to get into the operating system without knowing your password (safe mode, command prompt, boot cds, etc). Unfortunately when you forget your OSX password people tell you you’re stuck without the OSX dvd…well this isn’t exactly true! Follow these steps and you’ll be in OSX in no time!

  1. Shut down your Mac.
  2. Go into single user mode (hold the Apple and S key at the same time while booting your machine).
  3. When you get into terminal type in the folowing:
    • mount -uw /
    • rm /var/db/.AppleSetupDone
    • Shutdown -h now
  4. Follow the on screen instructions (should look like the same setup from when you initially turned on your mac

After you follow the steps it should make you a brand new admin account! From there you can either change your old password and log back into your former account or you can delete your old account and start with a close to new machine 🙂

This method does work on both Leopard and Snow Leopard!


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