Recovering forgotten iMac user ID through Apple ID
I have an old iMac and have not used it for 2 years and I forgot my user ID. I tried to open it through my Apple ID to reset it but it does not work. What should I do?
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Question marked as
What year & model?
See if you can create a new administrator account by restarting the Setup Assistant:
- Boot into Single User Mode: Start/restart your Mac. As soon as you hear the startup tone, press and hold ⌘ + S until you see a black screen with white lettering. (If you end up back on the login screen after a flash of the black screen with white lettering, enter your password and it will return to the black screen.)
- Check and repair the drive by typing /sbin/fsck -fy then ↩ enter - as directed by the on-screen text.
- Mount the drive as read-write by typing /sbin/mount -uw / then ↩ enter.
- Remove the Apple Setup Done file by typing rm /var/db/.AppleSetupDone then ↩ enter.
- Reboot by typing reboot then ↩ enter.
- Complete the setup process, creating a new admin account.
Be very careful to notice the spaces in those Terminal Commands.
Once you've done that the computer reboots and it's like the first time you used the machine, except all your data will still be there. Your old accounts are all safe. From there you just change all other account passwords in the account preferences!!
I understand & remember quite well the 1st time I did it, but there's not another way as far as I know. :)
Paste these lines into Text Edit so you can arrow thru & see the spaces...
/sbin/fsck -fy
/sbin/mount -uw /
rm /var/db/.AppleSetupDone