Related Guide: Reset macOS Sierra Admin Password on MacBook Pro, Air. Reset macOS Password Using Recovery Mode. This process is very straightforward and easy. You don’t need anything. No, bootable USB for macOS and no macOS DVD. Apple includes a Utility to reset an administrator’s password on every install Recovery HD partition. To use the Reset Password app, you’ll need to start your Mac using either the install DVD or the Recovery HD. Passware Kit 2019 v3 instantly decrypts LUKS volumes via live memory analysis, extracts passwords and other data from macOS High Sierra keychains Passware Kit 2019 v2 extracts passwords and other data from macOS iCloud keychains, decrypts VeraCrypt volumes for Linux, and supports an additional LUKS encryption type: SHA512, AES, XTS Plain64.

More than four years ago, Alicia Katz Pollock wrote “Five Ways to Reset a Lost Administrator Password” (17 January 2014), and through the vagaries of Google’s search algorithm, it remains our most popular article to this day. Apparently, lots of people forget their macOS passwords or need to help friends or clients who have lost their passwords.

Unfortunately, that article is long past its shelf life, so here’s a current guide to resetting an admin password in macOS 10.13 High Sierra. As before, you can accomplish this task in a variety of ways, depending on how the Mac in question was set up and what information you know.

Reset the Password from Another Admin Account

The best-case scenario is that there is another admin account on the Mac for which the password is available. If that’s true, you can log into that account and change the password for the locked account:

  1. Open System Preferences > Users & Groups.
  2. Select the locked account in the list at the left. (If necessary, click the lock at the bottom of the window and provide your admin credentials.)
  3. Click Reset Password.
  4. Enter the new password, verify it, and (optionally) include a password hint.
  5. Click Change Password.

The only problem with this method is if the locked-out account is logged in, you can’t modify it. The easy solution is to restart the Mac, log in with the admin account whose password you do know, and carry on from there. To forcibly log out the other user while rebooting, you have to enter an admin username and password.

If you don’t currently have an extra admin account on the Macs you take care of, it’s a good idea to create one. Just make sure it has a strong password that you’ll remember.

Reset the Password Using an Apple ID

What if there is no other admin account available? You can use the Apple ID associated with the account in question to reset the admin password, but only if these conditions are true:

  • You know the Apple ID’s email address and password. If you don’t know the password, but you have access to the email address, you can reset the password at Apple’s Apple ID page.
  • The “Allow user to reset password using Apple ID” checkbox in System Preferences > Users & Groups must be selected. This setting won’t appear if FileVault is enabled.

To get to the point in the login process where you can reset the password, click the question mark that appears on the right side of the password field or just try to log in three times. After the third failed login attempt, the Mac will prompt you with the password reminder, if one is set, and give you the option of resetting the password using your Apple ID.

Macos

Then enter the Apple ID email address and password and follow the onscreen instructions.

Reset the Password Using the Reset Password Assistant

If the “Allow user to reset password using Apple ID” option isn’t enabled, or the previous method doesn’t work, there’s still a way to use Apple ID credentials to reset the admin password. You’ll need to use Apple’s Reset Password assistant, which requires that you reboot into macOS Recovery and use Terminal:

  1. To enter macOS Recovery, restart the Mac. As it’s starting up, press and hold Command-R until you see the Apple logo, at which point you can let go.
  2. Once in macOS Recovery, ignore the main window and choose Utilities > Terminal, which opens a Terminal window.
  3. In that window, type resetpassword and press Return to open the Reset Password assistant.

Either way, once you’re in the Reset Password assistant, select “I Forgot My Password” and click Next.

If the account for which you wish to reset the password is a standard account, rather than an admin account, all you have to do is enter a new password.

For an admin account, you’ll instead have to enter the password for the account’s associated Apple ID. (If you don’t know it, you can click “Forgot Apple ID or password?” to move on to the Apple ID recovery process, which may require your trusted phone numbers.) Once you have entered the necessary password, you may be prompted for a two-factor authentication verification code, which will arrive on another device connected to that Apple ID. (If the Mac is your only Apple device, you should be able to receive the code from a phone call or SMS text message.) Finally, you’ll get to a screen where you can enter a new password and password hint.

What If You Use FileVault?

FileVault encrypts the Mac’s boot volume, making it readable only after the appropriate login credentials are entered, typically those of the primary admin account. The process for resetting the admin password changes a bit if FileVault is turned on because FileVault eliminates the option to reset the password with Apple ID credentials.

Fortunately, the method remains simple: enter a random password three times at the login screen, after which you’ll be prompted to reset the password using your Apple ID or recovery key.

Apple notes that you may still have trouble logging in with the new password after all this, and if so, suggests that you use the Reset Password assistant to reset the password again, using the “My password doesn’t work when logging in” option and following the subsequent instructions.

Password

I hope your FileVault recovery key is stored in a safe place, like 1Password or LastPass! If it wasn’t saved or you can’t access it, you may want to turn off FileVault before you get into a situation where you can’t log into the Mac. In my experience, it’s easier to back up the drive, erase it, and then restore it, than it is to turn off FileVault.

Dealing with the Keychain

The keychain is an encrypted container associated with each user account that stores login credentials for apps, network servers, AirPort base stations, and Web sites accessed in Safari. It’s easy to forget about the keychain because it is typically protected by the same password used to log in to the account. As a result, resetting the password for an admin account means that you can no longer access the keychain for that account. Sorry, but there’s no way to recover that information.

After resetting the admin password and logging in again, you will likely receive an alert that macOS was unable to unlock your login keychain. Click Create New Keychain to start fresh. If you don’t receive the alert and have problems with the keychain, follow these steps to reset it:

  1. Open Keychain Access from /Applications/Utilities.
  2. Choose Keychain Access > Preferences and click Reset My Default Keychains, which creates a new keychain with no password.
  3. Log out of the account by choosing Apple > Log Out Username.
  4. Log back into the account to tie the account password to the new keychain.

Don’t Reset Passwords Willy-Nilly

As you can see, there are a variety of ways that you can reset a lost or forgotten admin password and regain access to a Mac, although they all depend on knowing either another admin password or an Apple ID password.

However, don’t reset an admin password unless doing so is absolutely necessary because the login keychain will be lost in the process, and that will likely cause future annoyance.

If you’re not yet in this situation, take precautionary measures now! Be sure that your Macs’ passwords and any FileVault recovery keys are stored in secure locations that you—and other trusted users—can access easily. And of course, make sure to keep regular backups, which can help you recover from a multitude of sins.

Summary

APFS is more reliable, faster and safer to protect data in macOS High Sierra, Mojave and Catalina. If you lost data on an Apple's APFS drive due to mistaken deletion, SSD/HDD formatting, encryption or system corruption, you can use EaseUS APFS data recovery for Mac to recover APFS files in three steps. In addition, you can also try to open or recover APFS data on Windows as instructed here.

What Is APFS

APFS, short for Apple File System, is a faster and safer file system first enabled in macOS High Sierra. It has replaced the HFS+ and will be deployed on all Apple products from Apple Watch to Mac in the future. Except for optimization for flash and SSD drives, APFS provides a uniform encryption method for each Apple device, multi-key encryption for each file, and a separate key for sensitive metadata.

APFS Data Recovery

With these great features, APFS decreases the chance of data loss due to hard drive/system crash or virus attack. You may lose files most likely because mistaken deletion, hard drives formatting, trash emptied, or other scenarios. However, nothing is absolute. Data loss is inevitable during the daily use of Mac. What matters is how to recover files from APFS drive on Mac when accidents come.

How to Recover APFS Files on Mac

Due to the macOS requirement, you are not able to access the built-in APFS system drive from any apps. Therefore, if you happen to lose some critical files and want to recover deleted files from the system disk under macOS High Sierra 10.13, macOS Mojave10.14 or macOS Catalina 10.15, you have to rely on a professional and reliable APFS data recovery tool.

EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard Free for Mac is such an APFS data recovery program that enables you to retrieve accidentally deleted videos, audios, photos, documents, archives, and other files from APFS SSD/HDD. You can recover data from an emptied recycle bin, or restore lost files on APFS partition after formatting, macOS upgrading/corruption, etc.

Besides deleted file recovery, EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for Mac is simple and reliable APFS data recovery software for all data loss situations:

01

Encrypted APFS Drive Data Recovery:

Let you recover deleted or lost data from encrypted APFS drives of Macintosh HD and external drives. Simply enter your password to decrypt the drive in the first place and continue scanning.

02

APFS Formatted Drive Data Recovery:

Able to recover files after mistaken formatting, disk repartition, initialization or any unexpected manner that erases APFS drive data under macOS Catalina/Mojave/High Sierra.

03

Unmountable APFS Drive Data Recovery:

Recover data from unmounted APFS boot volume on Macintosh HD as well as on all types drives like external hard drives, USB flash drives, memory cards and so on.

04

Inaccessible APFS Drive Data Recovery:

Recognize, scan and recover data from the inaccessible APFS hard drives, external hard drives, USB flash drives, SD cards, memory cards and more.

Now, download and install EaseUS APFS data recovery tool on your Mac and follow the solutions below to get data back on the APFS drive.

Step 1. Select the disk location (it can be an internal HDD/SSD or a removable storage device) where you lost data and files. Click the Scan button.

Step 2. EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for Mac will immediately scan your selected disk volume and display the scanning results on the left pane.

Recover Master Password For Macos High Sierra 10 13 1

Step 3. In the scan results, select the file(s) and click Recover Now button to have them back.

As you can see from the above operation guidance, it's effortless to do APFS data recovery on Mac with the help of EaseUS Mac Data Recovery Software. Further, you can still use the software can recover lost data from HFS+, as well as NTFS, FAT & ex-FAT disk on Mac.

Windows 10 APFS Data Recovery

As far as we know, Apple File System (APFS) is a new file system for macOS, iOS, and Apple devices. Have you ever thought that setting up an APFS drive on a Windows-based computer? Or, is it possible to connect an Apple APFS drive to a Windows PC and access data in it? If this is the case you're concerned, there is third-party Windows 10 APFS data recovery software that will make it happen to read and write files on APFS file system HDD, SSD, and removable flash drives.

APFS for Windows by Paragon Software

High

Paragon, a third-party developer, solves the incompatibilities between file systems of each OS with its product called APFS for Windows, to enable users to freely access, modify and share files on an APFS drive across Windows and macOS platforms. To read and write APFS data in Windows 10, here is a simple guide for you.

Step 1. Download and install APFS for Windows by Paragon Software.

Recover Master Password For Macos High Sierra Download

Step 2. Connect your APFS drive to your PC.

Get Macos High Sierra

Step 3. Your drive will show up in Explorer. Now you can open the drive and manage data in Windows 10.

Conclusion

By reading through the article, you've learned how the APFS file system works on Mac and how to use the best APFS data recovery tool for recover lost, deleted, formatted, encrypted or inaccessible APFS internal hard drives as well external ones. Meanwhile, to help Windows users who need to read and write data on an APFS drive, we find APFS for Windows by Paragon Software is reliable and workable.