If you have Lost Mac OS X account password, there is a tricky method which let you create a new administrator account on Mac OS X and through that admin account you can reset password of previous account.
So, let’s see how to create an administrator account on Mac while you lost your Mac passwords. This guide written using Mac OS X Snow Leopard.
Creating new Mac OS X account to recover old account
Step 1
Restart system and hold “Cmd + S” keys from keyboard until it shows Terminal.
Step 2
Now type the following commands one after one and press “Enter” button after each command to execute it individually
/sbin/mount -uaw
rm /var/db/.applesetupdone
reboot
Step 3
“Reboot” command will restart the Mac and you will see the “Welcome wizard” after beautiful welcome messages animation.
Follow all the wizard instructions, until you see the following screen to create new account. Fill all entries and hit Continue button.
This will create a new administrator account and automatically log into it.
Reset old user account password
Now you can reset the password of your old Mac OS X account using this new account, here is the process.
Step-4
Click on “Apple icon” and then “System Preferences”
Click on “Account”s icon
Step-5
Here you can see all Mac OS X user accounts are listed, new account “TrickyWays” that we have created and “Susan” the old one that we want to recover.
Click on lock icon to enable prev. account “Susan” and reset its password.
Enter the Password of current user account and hit OK button
Step-6
Now your prev. account is enabled for changes, select that and hit the “Reset Password” button
Enter “New password”, “Password hint” and hit “Reset Password” button to reset account password.
Now log off and log in to your prev. account “Susan” and you can delete the account “TrickyWays” that we have created to recover prev. account “Susan”.
How to reset Mac Password without disk,
Since the computer thinks that it is first being used again, is all of my information erased on my current account, or does it stay? I’m on a regular account now, since I forgot my admin’s password, and all of my files are on this account. I have no way to store them anywhere, so i’d like to know if they will be kept after using this method. Thanks!
Don’t worry Haley, all your old files stay.
Thank you very much for this article, it was quite helpful.
Thank you sooo much!!!!!!!
Thanks so much, this is exactly what I neeeded
I tried this method and it didn’t work. After I typed reboot it just went back to my old user desktop. Welcome wizard never came up. Did I do something wrong?
THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! This was a perfect and easy solution.
Thank you So much this was really helpful!!! The instructions were GREAT!! but once logged in using the New admin name i created I clicked on the account that I wanted to change and it still would not allow me to change the password for that account. I am using an old OS X 3. verison and each time I attempted to change the password and it ask for the file vault password master key. Is there something I can do or all these file lost forever.
Disregard last post I figured it out sorry about that all I had to do was turn the file vault off… Again thank you for the advice you have no clue how much this has help me out… Truly a LIFE saver.
yoooououuuuuuuuuuu are the bbbbeeeessssssttttt
i thought i lost my macboo.
YOU MY FRIEND ARE A MAC SAVER! I JUST BOUGHT A MAC FROM EBAY AND THE ADMIN WAS LOCKED.. I WAS PANICKING! THANK YOU SO MUCH MAY GOD BLESS YOU ALWAYS! MUCH LOVE!
worked like a charm. Brilliantly simple and clear. Thanks very much