How to create new MacBook admin?

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How to create new MacBook admin?

My father passed away last year and left me his MacBook Pro, it isn’t password protected so I’m able to use it but the email he used for the admin no longer exists (it was a company email) and he didn’t remember the password either in his final weeks. I want to change the admin to my own email now without having to completely reset the laptop so that I don’t have to lose the photos and files he had. Is there a way to do this at home or will have to go into an Apple store? Basically what I’m trying to do is update iTunes so that I can back-up my iPhone 8 before I pick up my new iPhone 11 tomorrow, but the current OS is Yosemite so I need the admin access to update it to Catalina first to update iTunes.

MacBook Pro Retina

Posted on Jul 21, 2020 2:10 PM

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Answer 1

Jul 21, 2020 9:20 PM in response to c4farrel

If you don't want to lose any of the personal files, then you definitely need to back them up. Sooner or later the drive will fail, or a file will become corrupt or damaged, or a file may accidentally be deleted. Ideally you should have multiple backup drives and copies of any important data.

FYI, If the computer is using an SSD it is impossible to recover accidentally deleted data from an SSD. Plus an SSD can fail at any time without any warning signs. In fact with some newer Macs it may be impossible to recover data from the integrated SSD if the system has a hardware failure of any type (except perhaps by an expensive professional data recovery service).

Here is an Apple article on how to create a new admin user account:

https://support.apple.com/en-au/guide/mac-help/mtusr001/mac

Edit: Ooops, missed the part about not having the password. Is it possible you can reset the user account password?

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202860

You do need to be very careful in case the macOS login settings get changed to require a password. Backup your important data right away!

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How to create new MacBook admin?

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