While reading instructions to place a password on my laptop - the articles refer to password in one place and admin code in another - Are they both the same? Is Password the same as Admin? I know my arm IS different from MY apple ID. Thanks, for your help - IT is UNCLEAR TO ME which they are talking about to disable "auto long on".
MacBook Pro, OS X El Capitan (10.11.5), 13" mid 2012
Perfect to understand. That's all I needed , well... one more Q...shall I change my screen saver time settings 10-15 minutes? And my sleep settings 10-15 minutes? TO what time settings .. my computer is on all day, in my home , at my desk. (The P.W. is just for a trip) .I don't even intend to use it in a public space. Just need to take it from post A to point B. 🙂 I suppose I should check into how to turn the P.W. once I am back home?
OS X has three basic types of accounts - admin, user (non-admin) and guest. You need at least one admin account, which by default will the one you create when you initially set up a new device with OS X. But you can ordinarily login and work under a non-admin user account if you wish (and it's often recommended). As long as you know the admin account password you can always enter it when needed, such as installing new software or Apple updates.
The auto login option is in the accounts settings panel - you can enable any account to auto login, but that then allows anyone with physical access to the machine access to your account and files.
When you first setup the Mac, the first account created is an administrator account
and the password assigned to it, is an administrator password.
An administrator account/user has more privileges,
An administrator account password is also the login password.
An administrator can create additional administrator accounts and standard accounts.
Standard account passwords are login passwords
that can be entered to login but without any special privileges like creating a new account.
For more info:
About passwords:
https://support.apple.com/kb/PH21784?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US
About different types of passwords:
https://support.apple.com/kb/PH21994?locale=en_US&viewlocale=en_US
More about passwords:
The password assigned to your startup volume's user account is called an administrative (admin) password. Your Apple ID also uses a password that should not be the same as your admin password. If you enable Auto Login the password that is requested is the admin password. If you must unlock a preference panel in order to make changes then you are asked to enter your admin password. You also need that admin password to install new software.
Admin Password versus Password
