We all have dozens, even hundreds, of passwords to remember. Your Mac password, like your credit card PIN, is one of the most important, so forgetting it can be a nightmare. But this is not the end of the world. Here are some easy ways to reset your MacBook Air Password to make sure you do not lose it.
Safe experience is something you can not emphasize enough when dealing with Apple devices. This is where the secure Mac password comes in. While it may be easy to physically steal a computer, it is unlikely that someone will mess with your data until they know the password. So it is wise to take a few precautions to make it easier to recover from the loss.
The easiest way to reset your administrator password is to enter recovery mode. Here's how to do it.
Restart your Mac. You can only enter recovery mode when you start your laptop, so you need to restart it.
During the restart, press and hold Command + R until you see the Apple logo. If you see the login screen, you will have to restart Repeat this step until you reach recovery mode.
Go to the Apple menu at the top and click Utilities. This will open a drop-down list.
Then click on the terminal.
Enter "reset password" in the terminal window. Do not use space between words.
Then hit Enter. This will open the Reset Password Assistant screen.
Enter your password and hint.
Finally, click Restart. When you get to the login screen, select the administrator for whom you just reset the password, and enter your new password. Press Enter.
Do you share a Mac with someone else, some do remote work these hot desktops these days, do they have their own account? Is there an administrator who takes care of your Mac? IT boy (or girl) who may be able to access. Or do you have another Mac user account whose password you know?
If they (or you) know the password for another Mac account, you can use this account to reset your password. Follow these steps to reset your Mac password from another account.
Click the Apple icon at the top left and select Log Out.
Select the account for which you know the password.
Enter the password for that account.
Open System Preferences> Users or Groups.
Click the lock icon at the bottom left of the window.
Enter the password again.
In the sidebar, select the account for which you forgot your password.
Click Reset Password.
Fill in the new password, confirmation, and password hint fields.
Click Change Password.
You have now changed the password for that account. You can sign in to that account using the new password.
Note that this does not change the Keychain password, and you will be asked if you want to update your keychain password when logging in. To do this, you need the old password (which you forgot), so you will have to click Create New Keychain.
The problem here is that if the other user does not have administrator privileges on the Mac, they will not be able to change the password for you. The next option, if that doesn't work, is to use recovery mode.
In case you do not like the way your Mac login screen is organized, you can always change your login method to a simpler one by following these steps:
Go to System Preferences> Users or Groups> Login Options.
Make sure your login window is set to "Username and Password" instead of "User List".
This will ensure that if you forget your username, you will at least have a list of usernames to remind you which one might be yours.
The previous offer will only work if you can access your Mac, but what if you forget your Mac password? Or if you lost your administrator password for Mac OS X. If this is the case, but you are prompted, you can request a password prompt and to see if you can remember your password, it may be a trick and you do not need to reset it.
Follow these steps to add a hint to your Mac's password.
Open System Preferences (Apple> System Preferences).
Then select Users and Groups.
Click the Lock icon in the lower-left corner.
Choose your username in the sidebar.
Click Change Password…
Add a password prompt, which, by the way, is recommended.
Confirm:
Now that you know how to reset your password, you may worry that if you can use Recovery Mode to reset your password, someone might do the same. And when a person logs into your Mac, you usually lose control of it. Although there are a few steps you can take to protect your data.
The best way to protect your data is to enable FileVault encryption. This encrypts the contents of your Mac, The password recovery utility will not be displayed until you open it with Disk Utility. When you configure FileVault, you get the recovery key (which you have to type)and password. If you lose both of these, your data will be lost forever.
You can enable FileVault System Preferences> Security and Privacy> FileVault.
SOURCE: How to reset MacBook Password