Get admin controls without admin account on MacBook Pro

I tell all my mac using friends to always keep a second admin account. This would have saved you easily.

Also, I have to say this, not to chastise you, but as a warning to others: DON'T ever try to change your username.

The moment I read "no admin account" I knew that this is what you had done. We have seen many many cases of this.

Setting that aside, the traditional way to solve this involves fooling your mac into booting as if for the first time.

This technique does NOT work in Sonoma (*), but we have an arguably better solution.

1) BACKUP - this is crucial!

2) You could try Erase Content and Settings - this would have your mac start fresh, then you could create a new admin account, and subsequently migrate your account from your backup

BUT... you see the problem? I don't believe you can do Erase Content and Settings from a standard account...

So I am afraid that the solution now may require

1) BACKUP

2) FULL reinstall from recovery (and creating a new admin)

3) Migrate your account from backup

4) Use the other admin to regrant admin privilege to your account

(*) As seen in this documentation page: What's new for enterprise in macOS Sonoma - Apple Support

• Removing /private/var/db/.AppleSetupDone no longer relaunches Setup Assistant if a local user already exists on the Mac. Erase All Contents and Settings can reset the device and launch Setup Assistant.

Brooke0917 wrote:

I have the same issue as the OP. Tried trashing the .AppleSetupDone and it’s asking for the Admin login info.

Going into Terminal (in Restore mode) put me in the root and the commands came back as bad commands.

If you currently have macOS 14.x Sonoma installed, then you can no longer delete the .AppleSetupDone file. In fact the instructions linked earlier in the thread by @Barney-15E and myself actually mention that those instructions no longer worth with macOS 14.x Sonoma (I didn't realize it at the time I posted the link).

If you happen to be using any other version of macOS and instructions only involving Single User Mode, then those instructions involving Single User Mode will not work without modification to take into account the different mount points used by Single User Mode and Recovery Mode. Plus "sudo" must be removed from the commands when in Recovery Mode since you are already a root user at that point making "sudo" unnecessary & causing an error. If you are using macOS 13.x or earlier, then use the instructions @Barney-15E & I linked earlier.

If you are using macOS 14.x Sonoma, then your only option is to erase the computer followed by reinstalling macOS & restoring from a backup.

vysopublicenemy wrote:

I think I deleted acc which was administrator or my admin acc change it to standard when I changed my username , I can't remember exactly the moment when it happened

Very important information needed in the original post.

See if you can trick macOS into running Setup Assistant again by following the instructions in this article so that you can create another admin user account:

Restarting Setup Assistant to create Admin user - Apple Community

Then if you can create a new admin user, then follow every step in the following Apple article to correct the mistake you made with renaming the user account:

Change the name of your macOS user account and home folder - Apple Support

Just make sure to follow every step completely. Every word & detail in those instructions which you linked are critical for the success of this endeavor. You are attempting to modify an advanced setting which the article even mentions could break your system, so make sure to pay close attention to every word & detail within those instructions. I believe there is only one optional step...everything else is required.

Otherwise you will need to use the nuclear option and perform a clean install & restore from a backup.

BenjaminJul wrote:

Hi. I have macOS 14.x Sonoma installed and made the same mistake by changing my user name (I know, not clever). However, I'm not able erase the computer or perform a clean install, since I have to be admin to do so. In other words, it seems I can't do anything now, and I'm stuck in a limbo.

Do you have any suggestions on what to do to solve this issue of not being an admin of my own (expensive) Mac?

Thank you very much in advance.

If you read the link provided in my last post you will see another link to an Apple article which mentions this for your options:

What's new for enterprise in macOS Sonoma - Apple Support

At the bottom of this article appears:

* A Mac running macOS Sonoma can revive or restore a USB-tethered Mac in DFU mode using Finder.

* Removing /private/var/db/.AppleSetupDone no longer relaunches Setup Assistant if a local user already exists on the Mac. Erase All Contents and Settings can reset the device and launch Setup Assistant.

These are your only two options which will destroy all data on the Mac.

My guess is you will need to perform a firmware "Restore" which resets the security enclave chip & system firmware as well as pushes a clean version of macOS Sonoma onto the internal SSD. If you you have an Intel Mac, then after the firmware "Restore" you may need to boot into Recovery Mode (it may do this automatically) to reinstall macOS since it may not push the OS onto the internal SSD like it does with an Apple Silicon Mac. This is the only option available. Afterwards you will need to restore from a backup if you have one.

I hope you have a backup since there is no way to access the data on the internal SSD unless you can authenticate to the security enclave chip.

Erase your Mac and reset it to factory settings - Apple Support

How to revive or restore Mac firmware - Apple Support

Revive or restore a Mac with Apple silicon using Apple Configurator - Apple Support

ChristianGabetta wrote:

I face the same problem.

I do not have the "Admin" account anymore hence I can't add a user with admin preferences.

I only have one user which is "Standard"

How do I change my user form being "Standard" to "Admin"?

Thanks

Christian

As @Vancouver22 mentions, please read this entire thread as it contains all the information needed to explain the issue and the various methods to fix the problem. If you are using macOS 14.x Sonoma, then your only recourse is to perform a clean install or firmware "Restore" of the Mac to erase the laptop & reinstall macOS....afterwards you will need to restore your data from a backup made prior to this issue.

If you are not using macOS 14.x Sonoma, then you have other options to fix the issue, so read this entire thread before doing anything so you can understand the whole situation.

As @Vancouver22 mentions, please read this entire thread as it contains all the information needed to explain the issue and the various methods to fix the problem. If you are using macOS 14.x Sonoma, then your only recourse is to perform a clean install or firmware "Restore" of the Mac to erase the laptop & reinstall macOS....afterwards you will need to restore your data from a backup made prior to this issue.

If you are not using macOS 14.x Sonoma, then you have other options to fix the issue, so read this entire thread before doing anything so you can understand the whole situation.

vysopublicenemy wrote:

I think I deleted acc which was administrator or my admin acc change it to standard when I changed my username , I can't remember exactly the moment when it happened

This article includes instructions for resetting your administrator password:

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

snorre197 wrote:

I have the same problem, my admin account suddenly got a space as the first character and I now dont have any sudo privileges. The solution you suggest didnt work, Sonoma 14.2 is a disaster as it wont downgrade to 14.1 from Time Machine, and 14.2 backups dont work with Ventura. Catch 22 right there.

If you perform a clean install of Sonoma as instructed by @Luis Sequeira1....making sure to create a new admin user account during initial setup (use a different name), then it should get your system back to where you can fix the original broken macOS user account. After migrating/restoring from a backup, then y ou will need to follow the instructions in the following Apple article to fix whatever went wrong with the original account (every step in this article is critical):

Change the name of your macOS user account and home folder - Apple Support

Once you realign your original macOS user account using the linked instructions as a guide, then you should be able to go back to using the old macOS admin account. It is a good idea to keep a spare admin user account available for situations like this as it can make things easier to fix if something goes wrong.

If you are reinstalling Ventura instead, then you will need create a new admin user account on initial setup. Then instead of migrating from the TM backup, you will need to launch the TM app and restore just your data files. Unfortunately items like iTunes, Pictures, and perhaps some other databases from Apple services & apps won't be able to be used on the older OS due to possible changes in the database structures from the Sonoma upgrade. Of course you will need to manually reinstall your third party apps and reconfigure any settings since settings from Sonoma will probably break Ventura (or even Sonoma 14.1).

Otherwise you will need to use the nuclear option and perform a clean install & restore from a backup.

As per the article linked by Luis, earlier, that is now the only option.

Why don’t you factory reset the Mac

Erase your Mac and reset it to factory settings - Apple Support

but only do this if you know it is saved to icloud

Please read through this thread

You can’t create an Admin account or change the standard one to Admin.

“Standard users can’t add other users or change other users’ settings”

Change Users & Groups settings on Mac - Apple Support

There should be over 100 items in the db folder. I can only presume you have the folder in icon view and are only seeing the one item because the rest are positioned well out of the open window.

Press Command+2 to put the window in list view.

However, I tried to delete the file just now, and as suspected, it requires an admin password to complete the action. Which you can't do since you don't have an admin account.

You'll have to go about it the long way as shown in the linked article. The steps start partway down the page with the big headline, Missing Mac Admin Account? Create a New Admin Account in macOS.

And it goes without saying, make a full, restorable backup of your system FIRST, before continuing.

As I noted above, you won't see anything happen on your desktop. But when you double click the hard drive icon, besides all of the usual folders - Applications, Library, Users, etc. - you'll now also see a whole bunch of items in gray lettering. Those are all of the items that are normally hidden. Among those will be the folder, var.

Because now, in addition to regular users, admin users and root, there’s another class of admin user: the Owner.

According to the small print in Apple’s Platform Security Guide, when you set up a new M1 Mac, or set one up after restoring it in DFU mode, the primary admin account created is special: it’s the Owner account of that Mac.

During that initial setup, the Mac sends a request to Apple for that Mac’s signed Owner Identity Certificate (OIC).

This is based on a private key generated in the Secure Enclave known as the Owner Identity Key (OIK).

Each M1 Mac has just a single OIK, and access to that is confined to that primary admin user of the internal SSD, who is thus its Owner.

When did you do that? Only an Admin can install MacOS Sonoma. It would ask for the login password.