Sometimes a user’s login password needs to be reset—for example, when the user has forgotten the login password and can’t use a password hint to remember it.

When a user’s login password is reset, a new default keychain is created to store the user’s passwords. For more information about keychain passwords, see About your keychain password.

Reset your login password using your Apple ID

If you associated your user account with your Apple ID, you can use your Apple ID to reset your login password.

  1. Choose Apple menu > Restart, or press the Power button on your computer and then click Restart.

  2. Click your user account, click the question mark in the password field, then click the arrow next to “reset it using your Apple ID.”

  3. Enter an Apple ID and password, then click Next.

    Follow the instructions to reset your login password.

Reset your login password using a recovery key

If you turned on FileVault encryption and created a recovery key, you can use the recovery key to reset your login password.

  1. Choose Apple menu > Restart, or press the Power button on your computer and then click Restart.

  2. Click your user account, click the question mark in the password field, then click the arrow next to “reset it using your recovery key.”

  3. Enter the recovery key, then click Next.( other way enter the recovery key: Restart the computer, hold down the ‘command’ + ‘r’ keys on the keyboard during the start up process when you see the start up screen you can let go. )

  4. When the machine boots eventually you will see the OS X Utilities screen.Go to the Utilites menu and select Terminal.
  5. 1   At the prompt type ‘resetpassword’ (hit enter)   2
  6. This launches the Reset Password screen, select the Volume Hard Drive in the top part of the window pane, then for the user that you need to reset select the user account in the lower part then add and confirm the new password and click save, you get a confirmation screen and details about the keychain account.3 Go to the Apple Menu and click Restart to boot back to the normal hard drive and the new password will take effect immediately.

Reset the password of specific users

An administrator can reset the passwords of other users.

  1. Choose Apple menu > System Preferences, then click Users & Groups.

  2. Click the lock icon to unlock it, then enter an administrator name and password.

  3. Select a user, then click Reset Password.