Lesson 10: Manage Password Changes

Question 1

How can you change your local computer account password?

Answer 1

You can change your local account password from the General pane of Security & Privacy preferences or from Users & Groups preferences.

In either case, you select Change Password, and in the input pane, you must enter your old password once, followed by the new password twice.

Finally, select Change Password.

Question 2

How can you reset another user’s account password in macOS Big Sur?

Answer 2

You can reset other users’ account password if you have access to an administrator account on a Mac.

To perform the reset from Users & Groups preferences, you must authenticate as an administrator, select the user account that you want to change, and select the Reset Password button.

Then you must enter and verify the new password.

Question 3

How does resetting a user’s account password affect that user’s login keychain?

Answer 3

At login, if your login password doesn’t match your login keychain password, macOS creates a new, empty login keychain for you.

macOS sets your new login keychain password to match your login password.

The previous login keychain is renamed and archived.

(If the user remembers the old password, you can retrieve the archived keychain.)

Question 4

In what situations can you reset a login password with an Apple ID?

Answer 4

You can use your Apple ID to reset your login password if you escrowed your FileVault recovery key with your iCloud account or if your account has the “Allow user to reset password using Apple ID” option selected in the Users & Groups preferences.

Question 5

In what situation can you reset a login password with a FileVault recovery key?

Answer 5

You can use your FileVault recovery key to reset your login password if you selected “Create a recovery key and do not use my iCloud account” when you turned on FileVault and you have the recovery key.

(To reset a user’s lost account password, you can use the Reset Password assistant, resetpassword, available from macOS Recovery with the local user selection option if FileVault and Activation Lock are not turned on.)