How to Recover Mac Admin Account

Have you been trying to get into your Mac admin account, but your password doesn’t seem to work? You have checked the caps, the symbols, and every single detail of the password, only to see the error message again, right? Unfortunately, it means that your password isn’t correct, and you can no longer sign in to your superuser account. But don’t worry. Apple has given us plenty of ways to recover a Mac admin account. In this article, we will show you three easy ways to restore your administrator account for a Mac computer. Without further ado, let’s dig in.

1. Recover Mac Admin Account Using Recovery Mode

Resetting your admin password by entering the recovery mode is one of the easiest ways to restore your Mac admin account. Here’s what you need to do:

1. First, reboot your Mac. While your Mac is restarting, press and hold the “Command + R” keys on the keyboard until you see the Apple logo to enter the “Recovery Mode.” If you enter the “sign-in” screen instead of the “Recovery Mode” screen, repeat the process.
2. Next, click on the “Utilities” option of the “macOS Utilities” menu bar at the top of your screen. This will open up a drop-down menu with multiple options.
3. Now, click on the “Terminal” option.
4. Once the Terminal opens, type “resetpassword” and press the “Enter” key to open the “Password Assistant” window.
5. After that, type a new password of your choice and password hint, and click on the “Next” option. If you have multiple user accounts, you need to click on “Forget all passwords” and select the administrator account you want to rescue.
6. Once you set the new password, click on the “Apple” icon on the screen and then click on the “Restart” option.

With this, you have successfully recovered your Mac admin account. Now, all you need to do is go to the “Sign-in” screen and use the new password to log in to your admin account.

2. Use Apple ID for Recovering Mac Admin Accounts

If you try to sign in to your admin account multiple times in a row but still fail, macOS will ask if you want to reset your password using your Apple ID. What’s more, the process to retrieve your Mac admin account using Apple ID is easier compared to the previous method. Here’s what you need to do to get your admin account back through Apple ID:

1. First, click on the “arrow” icon that appears beside the “reset it using your Apple ID” message. A new prompt to reset your password will appear.
2. Next, in the newly appeared prompt, enter your Apple ID credentials and click on the “Reset password” button.
3. Now, a warning message will flash on your screen. The message will tell you that if you reset your password, it will create a new “Keychain File.” A keychain file keeps the password of websites and apps you frequently visit saved. Thus, if a such file is created, you need to add the websites and their passwords to the file from scratch. To continue with the password reset process, click on the “OK” button of the message.
4. On the next screen, enter a new password of your choice and a suitable password hint, and click on the “Reset password” option.
5. Now, Mac will ask you to restart to save the changes. Click on the “Restart” button.

Once you get to the “Sign-in” screen, you can use the new password to access your superuser account.

3. Get Mac Accounts Back Through a Secondary Admin Account

Restoring your Mac admin account will be a piece of cake as long as you have a second admin account on your device. The experts highly recommend creating at least one more admin account to troubleshoot multiple issues. Moreover, you may employ it to retrieve other admin accounts if you forgot their passwords. Therefore, if you have a second one, follow these steps to recover the other Mac admin account:

1. First, sign in to your second admin account using the appropriate credentials.
2. Now, open the “System Preferences” window and click on the “Users & Groups” option at the bottom of the panel.
3. Next, click on the “Lock” icon in the bottom-left corner of the screen. Here, you need to provide your second admin account credentials once again to continue to the next step.
4. In the next window, click on the “Admin Account” you want to recover from the left panel.
5. After that, click on the “Reset password” button on the right panel of the window.
6. In the next step, type a new password of your choice and a password hint, and click on the “Change Password” option.

Now, you just need to log out from the second admin account and sign in to your first admin account using your new password. With this done, you can sign in to a previously locked Mac administrator account.

Please Note: If you don’t have a second admin account, you can’t use this method to recover your Mac admin account. Therefore, you’ll be forced to utilize the two other methods we have mentioned above.