My Father died last year and I inherited his Mac Mini. My wife has retired and we are trying to set up the mini for her use but the changes we want to make require admin access and we do not have the information my father used to set up the machine.
Is it possible to reset the admin information without having the old information? If so, how would I go about it?
I am not a Mac user usually so any guidance will have to be pretty simple!
Best Answer
With macOS Catalina and many recent macOS - the built in tools guide everyone how to reset admin permissions without needing any of the single user mode boot tricks of old (left at the bottom for posterity and people running OS that were shipped before 2015)
Now - follow the official Apple triage steps: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202860
Instead of single user mode, boot to recovery and use the Terminal Utility. Then you can remove the .AppleSetupDone file from:
There are many ways to reset the login password without installation media, here are three:
Change the password in single user mode
mount -uw /
(fsck -fy
is not needed)launchctl load /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.opendirectoryd.plist
(or/System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.DirectoryServices.plist
in 10.6)dscl . passwd /Users/username
(without a trailing slash) and enter a new password. You can ignore the error aboutcom.apple.DirectoryServices.plist
.reboot
Create a new admin account
mount -uw /
(fsck -fy
is not needed)rm /var/db/.AppleSetupDone
reboot
Restart and enter Recovery mode (for 10.7 Lion and newer OS only)
resetpassword
and follow the instructionsUsing iCloud Recovery Mode (10.9.x & newer)