My 5 year old got into my locked MacBook

[TonyC28]

I'm trying to figure out how this happened, so who better to ask than the experts here. My M1 MacBook Air was locked after sitting idle for some time. My five year old son came downstairs claiming to know my password. He likes to joke about that and usually rattles off some gibberish. This time, however, he rattled off my actual password. He claims he woke the computer and somehow saw a question mark near the Enter Password field. When he clicked on it, the password appeared in the box. I can't figure out how he managed this. I can't even get a question mark to appear. Normally I would think he's lying to me, but there's no way he ever knew my password. Does anyone know what might have happened here?

This is the screen he saw and claims had a question mark on it.

 

[fisherking]

check "Lock Screen" in system settings; do you have a hint showing? seems most likely...

 

[TonyC28]

check "Lock Screen" in system settings; do you have a hint showing? seems most likely...

I don't see a hint anywhere, and I don't see an option to add one in Settings.

 

[Adora]

I don't see a hint anywhere, and I don't see an option to add one in Settings.

It should be here:

Maybe just change your password and leave the hint field blank:

 

[TonyC28]

It should be here:

View attachment 2591676


Maybe just change your password and leave the hint field blank:


View attachment 2591681
View attachment 2591682View attachment 2591683

Now we're getting somewhere. That option is turned on, but I can't figure out how to display the hint. I entered the wrong password several times and nothing comes up.

 

[chown33]

Add a password hint on Mac

On your Mac, add a password hint to help you remember your password.

support.apple.com

As a test, I suggest setting a hint of something easily recognizable, like "The Hunting of the Snark". After it's been definitively set, you can play around with getting it to display.

Or if you don't want to play around with your actual admin account, make a new throwaway account you can play with. It can be deleted when you're done.

 

[BigBlur]

Now we're getting somewhere. That option is turned on, but I can't figure out how to display the hint. I entered the wrong password several times and nothing comes up.

The question mark/hint doesn't show if the account is already logged in. It should show up if you restart or log out of your account.

 

[TonyC28]

Well, we have gotten to the bottom of it. Somehow, my hint was set as my password. I'm not an idiot, and there is no way in a million years I would do that. My wife is also an admin on the laptop, so I am blaming her. Thanks everyone for the help.