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Dudefoxlive

macrumors member
Original poster
Nov 13, 2014
55
2
NO
hi, my friends father has a macbook pro that has not been turned on in 3 years. We fix the date and time not beijg correct but now we r trying to reset the password on the old account. We cant remember the id and apple cant find it on there website. Is there a way to find the id on the old install of os x?
 
You can do two things to gain access to passwords from the system, this will disclose other stuff as well - such as what email was used on the apple site, etc.. Disclosing the apple id obviously.

a) key chain. Open it, unlock it, browse through it, take note of the details in there.
b) chrome password manager. open chrome, go to settings, find manage passwords, and unlock to 'show password' , and take note.

The combo of these two will be enough to see what sites have been visited, or at least have a login to via a submitted form, and which apps etc that use keychain (like iTunes probably) will have some details.

You can also indeed try to open iTunes and see if it lists the email, but fails the login if the pass is unknown. But if you have the email, you can restore apple-id through apple's site.

That said, modern versions of Apple's macOS (osx) are free for download now. The older ones were for sale for like 15 bucks. Maybe creating a new apple id and saving the headache of figuring things out over just getting a new apple id might be an option to consider
 
That's pretty pro-user steps on osxdaily.

The easiest way is plugging in the install disk and don't install the os, instead, click in the utility menu and select 'change admin password'.

But yeah, if you don't have that osx disk, the command line interface is the other option.

Most admin passwords from people with old macs are pretty easy to guess though :)
 
unless any of this will work for an apple id login it is not very helpful. the previous owner of the machine made a new apple id and cant remember his old apple id. i would like to try and recovery it before resorting to a system reinstall.
 
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