How To Reset Macbook Air Password With Apple Id

Luckily, there is an alternative solution to recovering your password. Use Recovery Mode. Apple provides a tool to replace a Mac’s password through bypassing all of the previous steps. This is the best option if you don’t have a password hint, can’t log in via another account and have completely forgotten your password. Turn off your Mac. My Macbook Air is the old one bought in 2015, but I recently updated it to MacOS Catalina, so I followed the guide to reset it under your Catalina instructions. I managed to erase the Macintosh HD Data volume, but when I tried to erase Macintosh HD it said “Erase process has failed”. A window appears, select your admin name, enter the password for Apple ID. Two options will be shown ( a ) previous ( b) next, click on next Select your user account, you have to press forcefully on the trackpad to get it selected. To make a go of this, click on the question mark next to the password field that you see on the login screen. Agree to the option to reset with Apple ID and enter wrong login credentials three times to be able to create the new password. Once you get to the reset screen, input a new password two times, create a hint, and save. Change password. To use your Apple ID to reset an account's password, the Apple ID must be associated with that account. You would have associated your Apple ID with your user account either when you initially set up your Mac or when you added user accounts.

If you forget your OS X account password then it can be reset by either another user, provided they have administrator privileges, or through OS X Recovery.

A new password recovery feature introduced with OS X Lion is the option of assigning an Apple ID to your OS X user account. Should you forget your password or if it has been changed without your knowledge, you can reset it yourself without the assistance of another user or the process of booting the Mac into OS X Recovery.

Benefits

OS X Lion and above have included a feature to link an Apple ID to your Mac’s local user account for the purpose of resetting a forgotten password. The benefit of using this is that you don’t need anyone else’s assistance to reset your password, nor be concerned with using OS X Recovery.

For Mac system administrators, allowing users to tie their Apple ID to their local OS X account can mean fewer password reset requests since the user can just do it themselves.

Linking an Apple ID

To link your Apple ID to your OS X user account, launch System Preferences and select Users & Groups.

Select your user account and in the section for Apple ID, click Set…. Enter your Apple ID and password when prompted.

Finally, make sure to check the option Allow user to reset password using Apple ID.

Resetting a Password with an Apple ID

Back at the OS X login window, if the password is entered incorrectly a number of times then a message will appear asking if you’d like to reset your password using your Apple ID.

Click the ▸ button to continue the process of resetting your Mac password.

Enter your Apple ID credentials and click Reset Password. A warning dialog will appear explaining that a new Keychain will be created since OS X prevents the Keychain password from being reset.

After confirming, you can then specify a new password for your OS X account. Once verified, click Reset Password.

A Note about Keychain

On the first time you log in after resetting your password using any method, not just with an Apple ID, OS X may display a message about being unable to access your Keychain. Since your Keychain password can only be changed and not reset, you’ll need to select Create New Keychain. If you opt to continue logging in, you’ll simply be bombarded with messages about various apps and services being unable to access the Keychain.

As you may have confidential passwords and information stored within your Keychain, OS X explicitly requires a password and it cannot be reset. This security feature is by design so that someone cannot maliciously reset your OS X password, log in and then find out all your other passwords for services such as online banking that may have been saved.

If you do reset your user account password, OS X will have no choice but to create a new Keychain for your user account and any saved passwords for apps like Twitter will have to be entered again. The old Keychain will not be deleted but is inaccessible unless the old password can be provided.

No matter which method you use to reset administrator password on mac, it won't automatically update the password protecting the account's login keychain. Since the keychain is still protected with the old administrator password, there would be no way to get back into it unless you could update keychain password or create new keychain.

Probably you are just prompted to do that at startup after Mac admin password reset, such as on Yosemite, or constantly asked to enter the keychain password after Mac login. Regardless of which happens, resetting keychain password would help you access Keychain again.

Method 1: Reset Keychain login password in Keychain Access

After you log into Mac with new administrator password, follow the steps below.

1. Open Keychain Access from Finder> Applications Utilities, and choose Keychain AccessPreferences from top menu.

How To Reset Macbook Air Password With Apple Id

2. In newer versions of Mac OS X, such as on Yosemite, you will see a button Reset My Default Keychain under the General pane.

3. Click it and enter the new login password in Password field to create new keychain.

Note: If you have no such button, choose EditKeychain List (Command + Option + L), select the login keychain, and click the minus button to delete it.

4. Quit Keychain Access and restart Mac. A new login keychain will recollecting and storing the passwords for Wi-Fi networks, email accounts, Web sites, and other logins as they occur.

Method 2: Reset Keychain password with command line in single user mode

How To Reset Macbook Air Password With Apple Id Reset

If you cannot work with Keychain Access because of something like Messages Agent constantly asking for the forgotten login keychain password, you can use command line to reset Keychain password in single user mode.

1. Restart Mac and hold on Command + S to enter single user mode.

2. After you are prompted to enter a command-line after numerous lines of status messages, type this command to mount the root Mac OS X drive as writable.

mount -uw /

3. Delete that account's login keychain.

rm /Users/shortname/Library/Keychains/login.keychain

Note: If you are not sure the shortname, please confirm it with command 'ls /Users' at first.

4. Reboot Mac by command 'reboot'.

After Mac starts, you should have created a new keychain on Mac.

Update keychain password if you still remember the old one:

1. Click Update Keychain Password and enter the old password at startup, or continue login and enter old password when you are asked.

2. Open Keychain Access and right click on login, and choose the option Change Password for Keychain 'Login' from pop-up menu.

3. Enter the old password in 'Current Password' field and new password in 'New Password' box. Verify it and click OK to successfully change keychain password.

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