there is no admin account on my Mac. Only one user account and that account is "Standard". How do I get admin controls without an admin account?
MacBook Pro m1
macOS Sonoma 14.0
Please help me.
[Re-Titled by Moderator]
MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 14.0
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
nothing happening
Does he first have to set Finder Prefs to show the Macintosh Hard Disk on the Desktop? Or this Command shortcut does this?
When did you do that? Only an Admin can install MacOS Sonoma. It would ask for the login password.
Needing an admin account to upgrade apparently hasn’t been true for years.
okay , yeah , but what I must to do now?
In var and db folder I have file SystemPolicy.
The keyboard shortcut shows all hidden items. Pressing it again does the reverse.
That is a very good suggestion. Either someone from a tech business, or a friend who knows more about this stuff.
Guys , and of discussion , apple helped me
It might helpful for others if you shared how the matter was resolved...
Thanks, I will take a look!
Not possible without an admin account and password:
When asked to sign in with your administrator credentials, enter the password that you use to log in to your Mac.
Could you please share the solution provided by Apple? It would be very helpful to many other users with the same issue.
did Somebody told u how?
I have the same issue
Unfortunately doing that asks for the administrator username and password...which does not work and which we are trying to do this work around to set up an admin.
This should still work.
You’ll now have created a new admin account which is fresh and completely different user account than your standard user account. The standard user account and all user data still exists, assuming this was done properly.
You can either use this admin user account to authenticate as needed with administrator requests and logins, or you can modify the original user account to become an admin account again.
You may not be able to complete this while booted to the OS as it will probably ask for an admin password to delete the .AppleSetupDone file. If that's the case, follow the full procedure here:
Get admin controls without admin account on MacBook Pro
