The password of your macOS user account is also known as your login password. It's the password that you use to log in to your Mac and make certain changes, such as installing software.
Change your password
- Here are the steps to remove the password from the computer: Switch off the file vault option by following the procedure. Go to System Preferences. Go to Security & Privacy.
- The built-in disk utility of macOS sierra system makes it easy to set protection password for a folder. Without a disk utility, you can also look for third-party tools to add a password to lock your folder on Mac. But here on this page, the content is mainly about how to quickly lock your Mac folder with password without 3rd-party tools.
If you know your password and can use it to log in to your account, you can change your password in Users & Groups preferences:
When a user's login password is reset, a new default keychain is created to store the user's passwords. For more information about keychain passwords, see About your Keychain Password. Reset macOS Sierra Forgotten Password. Every Mac has a built-in Recovery mode that will let you change the system password if it's been forgotten. Read our How to recover a forgotten Mac password tutorial for a step-by-step guide to.
- Choose System Preferences from the Apple menu, then click Users & Groups.
- Select your user name from the list of users.
- Click the Change Password button, then follow the onscreen instructions.
Reset your password
If you don't remember your password, or it isn't working, you might be able to reset it using one of the methods described below. But first try these simpler solutions:
- Make sure that you're typing the correct uppercase or lowercase characters. If your keyboard has Caps Lock turned on, the password field shows a Caps Lock symbol .
- If the password field shows a question mark, click it to display a password hint that might help you to remember.
- Try to log in without a password. If that works, you can then add a password by following the steps to change your password.
- Try to log in with the Apple ID password that you use for iCloud. If you just changed that password and the new password isn't working, try the old password first. If that works, you should be able to use the new password from then on.
Reset using your Apple ID
In some macOS versions, you can use your Apple ID to reset your login password. At the login screen, keep entering a password until you see a message saying that you can reset your password using Apple ID. If you don't see the message after three attempts, your account isn't set up to allow resetting with Apple ID.
- Click next to the Apple ID message, then follow the onscreen instructions to enter your Apple ID and create a new password. You'll be asked to restart when done.
- Log in with your new password.
- Determine whether to create a new login keychain.
Reset using another admin account
If you know the name and password of an admin account on your Mac, you can use that account to reset the password.
- Log in with the name and password of the other admin account.
- Choose System Preferences from the Apple menu, then click Users & Groups.
- Click , then enter the admin name and password again.
- Select your user name from the list of users.
- Click the Reset Password button, then follow the onscreen instructions to create a new password:
- Choose Log Out from the Apple menu.
- Log in to your account using your new password.
- Determine whether to create a new login keychain.
Reset using the Reset Password assistant (FileVault must be on)
If FileVault is turned on, you might be able to reset your password using the Reset Password assistant:
- Wait up to a minute at the login screen, until you see a message saying that you can use the power button on your Mac to shut down and start up again in Recovery OS. If you don't see this message, FileVault isn't on.
- Press and hold the power button until your Mac turns off.
- Press the power button again to turn on your Mac.
- When the Reset Password window appears, follow the onscreen instructions to create a new password.
If you need to connect to Wi-Fi, move your pointer to the top of the screen and use the Wi-Fi menu to connect. To exit without resetting your password, choose Apple menu > Restart. - When done, click Restart.
- If you were able to reset your password with the Reset Password assistant, log in to your account using your new password.
- Determine whether to create a new login keychain.
Reset using your Recovery Key (FileVault must be on)
If FileVault is turned on and you have a FileVault Recovery Key, you can use that key to reset your password.
- At the login screen, keep entering a password until you see a message saying that you can reset your password using your Recovery Key. If you don't see the message after three attempts, FileVault isn't on.
- Click next to the message. The password field changes to a Recovery Key field.
- Enter your Recovery Key. Use uppercase characters, and include the hyphens.
- Follow the onscreen instructions to create a new password, then click Reset Password when done.
- Determine whether to create a new login keychain.
If you can't log in with your new password after restarting your Mac, take these additional steps:
- Restart again, then immediately hold down Command-R or one of the other macOS Recovery key combinations until you see the Apple logo or a spinning globe.
- When you see the macOS Utilities window, choose Utilities > Terminal from the menu bar.
- In the Terminal window, type
resetpassword, then press Return to open the Reset Password assistant pictured above. - Select 'My password doesn't work when logging in,' then click Next and follow the onscreen instructions for your user account.
Create a new login keychain, if necessary
After resetting your password and logging back in to your account, you might see an alert that the system was unable to unlock your login keychain. This is expected, because the passwords for your user account and login keychain no longer match. Just click the Create New Keychain button in the alert.
If you didn't see an alert about your login keychain, or you see other messages asking for your old password, reset your keychain manually:
- Open Keychain Access, which is in the Utilities folder of your Applications folder.
- Choose Preferences from the Keychain Access menu, then click the Reset My Default Keychain button in the preferences window. After you enter your new password, Keychain Access creates an empty login keychain with no password. Click OK to confirm.
If you don't see a Reset My Default keychain button, close the preferences window and select the 'login' keychain from the left side of the Keychain Access window. Press the Delete key, then click Delete References. - Choose Log Out from the Apple menu to return to the login screen.
- Log in to your account using your new password. Your account password and login keychain password now match again.
If you still can't log in
If you still can't log in with your password, contact Apple Support for help.
Summary: The Mac frozen or stuck on the login screen after entering password? This page is about how to fix this issue, so that you can log into your Mac again.
Admittedly, Mac computers are powerful and reliable. But the Mac is not immune to errors and corruption on the operating system level. Many users have reported the same problem: Mac stuck on a login screen.
In this case, the Mac won't let you log in, even you enter the correct password. And in some worse cases, the Mac computer won't even boot after the latest macOS update.
But in this post, you'll know how to fix the iMac or MacBook stuck on login screen issue. And your Mac would boot past the Mac login screen as usual.
Two situations how your Mac gets stuck on login screen
Before you go further, you should know there are two situations. It depends on if you have enabled FileVault to encrypt your startup drive.
How To Change Password On Mac
For users who encrypt the system drive, you'll be asked for a password before you see the progress bar. In this case, the password usually would be accepted, but Mac is stuck on the loading bar. The loading bar may stop somewhere between 50% and 75%, or even 100%.
You can't log in to your Mac in this situation. It could result from a Kernel program incompatibility, file system corruption, or some core data lost.
Another case is that the startup is not encrypted by FileVault or APFS feature. You'll see the loading bar first, then the login screen appears. In this case, Mac computers like MacBook Pro won't log in but stuck at the login screen. It is usually caused by software conflicts, frozen login items or configuration errors.
How to fix the Mac stuck on login screen issue?
Anyhow, these methods would be helpful to fix the Mac stuck on loading or login screen issue.
Solution 1: Bypass Login items at startup
In case some login items stop you from logging in to your Mac, you can try these steps.
- Start your MacBook normally.
- On the Login page, enter the admin account and password, but DON'T click on Log in immediately.
- Press and hold the Shift key to stop frozen apps launching. And then, you can click on the Login button.
Solution 2: Boot your Mac in Safe Mode
Booting Mac into Safe Mode will only launch necessary programs. It's efficient to isolate incompatible software and repair some errors when Mac can't boot.
To boot into Safe Mode:
- Press and hold the Shift key while tapping the power button to restart your Mac.
- Release the Shift key till you see the Apple logo and loading bar.
- If your Mac loads successfully in Safe Mode, try to uncheck login items in Users & Groups.
Sometimes you can't boot into Safe Mode because FileVault is enabled. You could decrypt your startup drive temporarily by booting Password Reset Assistant. This makes Safe Mode be able to check and repair errors before the login window appears.
If you succeed in turning off FileVault, you can restart your Mac normally. Then you can see if it brings up the login window. But if the progress bar is stuck underneath the Apple icon, you can try Safe Mode again after turning off the FileVault.
Solution 3: Reset NVRAM / PRAM
NVRAM, as well as PRAM, is a small amount of memory that your Mac uses to store certain settings and access them quickly. Thus, whenever your Mac won't boot, you can try to reset the NVRAM / PRAM.
Now, restart your Mac and simultaneously press Command + Option + P + R keys for about 20 seconds until your Mac restart automatically.
Solution 4: Boot your Mac into macOS Recovery mode
Mac could freeze on the login screen in a normal boot. But if you can boot into macOS Recovery Mode, you could troubleshoot this issue more easily. Recovery mode, sometimes called sigle-user mode, is a lite built-in macOS utility to check and repair some system issues.
To boot into macOS Recovery Mode:
- Press and hold the power button until the Mac turns off.
- Restart the Mac and immediately press and hold the Command and R keys.
- Release those keys when you see the loading bar.
If you successfully boot into macOS Recovery Mode, you'll see a macOS Utilities screen. (In some old system, it's called Mac OS X Utilities.) Then, you can do several things to fix the Mac stuck on login screen issue.
1. Repair the startup drive in Disk Utility
Probably, the Mac won't past the Apple logo or login screen because of file system or disk errors. Fortunately, you can check for and repair errors with the built-in tool First Aid.
2. Reset password
Mac could be stuck on the login screen after you forget the Mac's password. If you've entered the wrong password too many times, the system could be locked. Then the Mac won't accept the password even it's the right one.
In this case, you may want to reset your Mac's login password by:
Mac could be stuck on the login screen after you forget the Mac's password. If you've entered the wrong password too many times, the system could be locked. Then the Mac won't accept the password even it's the right one.
In this case, you may want to reset your Mac's login password by:
- 1. Entering your Apple ID
- 2. Providing recovery key if you have created on before.
You can also do this via Terminal.
- 1. In macOS Recovery mode, open the Terminal by clicking Utilities > Terminal in the top menu bar.
- 2. At the Terminal prompt, type resetpassword, and then hit Enter.
- 3. Follow its onscreen wizard to reset the password.
With the password hint, you can change the password of a non-encrypted account. Then you can restart your Mac and log in to your Mac again.
3. Check and fix user preference settings
Sometimes, the .plist files related to user preferences could be changed. Then, your login information would not be accepted.
In this case, you can use the mv command in Terminal to rename the preference folder. And you can troubleshoot and nuke the problematic .plist file easily.
The other times you can't log in to the Mac just because the access to the user directory was changed. You can run chmod to change the access permission.
4. Reset launch services database
If the Mac gets stuck on the login screen and won't accept the password, you can remove the .csstore file ( a launch services database) in Terminal and fix the problem.
- 1. Open Terminal in macOS Recovery mode.
- 2. At the Terminal prompt, type find /private/var/folders | grep com.apple.LaunchServices | grep csstore, and then hit Enter.
- 3. Remove every .csstore file you can find by rm command.
My Passwords On Mac
Hopefully, you can log in to your Mac after a rebooting.
5. Reinstall macOS in macOS Recovery mode
If you are not one of the situations above but see a folder with question mark on the Mac, you can simply reinstall the macOS to reset your Mac.
How to prevent data loss when you can't log into the Mac?
Probably, you have tried out all the solutions above, but your Mac kept stuck on loading or login screen. Then, you might want to erase your disk to reinstall macOS.
Before heading to erase the Mac hard drive, please make sure you have backed up your data. If you don't have backups, you can use Mac data recovery software like iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac. It would be helpful to recover lost data from the unbootable Mac.
To recover data from unbootable Mac, you need to run iBoysoft Data Recovery in macOS recovery mode.
