How to Reset Mac OS X Password (10.4/10.5/10.6/10.7 Lion/10.8 Mountain Lion)

Posted on the 11 April 2023 by Jitendra Vaswani @JitendraBlogger

Daily we deal with many passwords, i.e., Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, etc. and the main task is to remember it.

But now it becomes easier because our browsers provide the facility to remember the password but what happens when you forgot your OS password? Without password, we can’t log in and it doesn’t provide an option like “Forgot Password”.

In that case, we all think to install a new copy of the OS and our problem will be solved. No! That’s not the correct option because there are many tricks available to change the password.

Today I will show you a trick to “reset Mac OS X password” without installing a new copy of it. As we have many versions of Mac OS X, there will be some small difference in a trick to resetting the password. First, we will see “How to reset Mac OS X password” depending on the versions.

1. Reset 10.4 Tiger password

Power on or restart your Mac.

  1. First, you have to enter a single-user mode for that, at the chime (or gray screen if your chime is turned off) hold “Command + S” on your keyboard to enter it into single-user mode
  2. Now type “sh /etc/rc” and press Enter/Return.
  3. Then type “passwd username” and replace “username” with the short name of the user account for which you’d like to reset the password.
  4. Type the desired password and press enter. It won’t show on the screen so type correctly. You have to enter the same password twice.
  5. At last type “reboot” and press enter.
  6. Done successfully and Login with your change credentials.

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2. Reset 10.5 Leopard & 10.6 Snow Leopard password

  1. Power on or restart your Mac.
  2. First, you have to enter a single-user mode for that, at the chime (or gray screen if your chime is turned off) hold “Command + S” on your keyboard to enter it into single-user mode
  3. Type “fsck -fy” and press Enter/Return. Wait till the system checks to complete its process.
  4. Now, type “mount -uw /” press Enter.
  5. Then, type “launchctl load /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.DirectoryServices.plist” and press Enter.
  6. Type “ls /Users” and press Enter, it will show you the list of all usernames on the computer.
  7. Type “dscl . -passwd /Users/username password” and replace “username” with the short name of the user account for which you’d like to reset the password as well as replace “password” with a new password as per your choice. Press Enter.
  8. Type “reboot” and press Enter.
  9. You have changed the password successfully. Login with your new username and password.

3. Reset 10.7 and 10.8 Lion password using Lion Recovery

If you bought Mac with Lion pre-installed then your hard drive includes with a recovery partition that gives you access to different tools. So, follow the below steps to reset your Mac OS X password.

  1. Shut down your Mac and turn it back on while holding down the Command and R keys to bring up the Lion Recovery screen.
  2. At the top you will see a menu bar from there, 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 and your task will be completed.
  5. With simple steps, you have reset your Mac OS X password.

4. Reset 10.7 and 10.8 Lion password with Single User mode

  1. Shut down your Mac and turn it back on while holding down the Command and S keys at the same time until you see a black screen with white text. This is known as Single User mode.
  2. At the prompt, type “fsck -fy” and press Enter to check the consistency of your hard disk.
  3. Now, type “mount -uw /” press Enter.
  4. Then, Type “launchctl load /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.opendirectoryd.plist” and press Enter.
  5. Type “ls /Users” and press Enter, it will show you the list of all usernames on the computer.
  6. Type “dscl . -passwd /Users/username password” and replace “username” with the short name of the user account for which you’d like to reset the password as well as replace “password” with a new password as per your choice. Press Enter.

Note: If you get an error message about a file or directory not being found, just ignore this and it will not create any problem.
Type “reboot” and press Enter.

Great! You have successfully changed your password and login with the change credentials.
Hope you got all the above four tricks to reset Mac OS X password of any version. If you faced any problem in changing the password then put your problem/query in the comments box and I will surely help you to get it solved.