Apple Ping
Sometimes a login password needs to be reset—for example, if you have forgotten the login password and can’t use a password hint to remember it. When a user’s login password is reset, a new default keychain is created to store the user’s passwords. See About your keychain password.
Hopefuily this will help you.
they aren’t “enthusiasts”. they are cult members.
Your Apple ID is your user name for iTunes Store, Apple Books, App Store, iCloud, and other Apple services. It is also used to set up your Apple ID preferences on your Mac. If you can’t remember your Apple ID or password, the Apple ID account website can help you find it.
Go to the Apple ID account website, click “Forgot Apple ID or password?,” then follow the onscreen instructions.
Sorry to hear about your nephew. Hopefully he left a password somewhere for his wife to find. This reminds me I need to update some passwords for my wife next time I go to my safe.
Just a guess, but you may be able to boot off of an external hard drive, and then examine the internal hard drive after starting up.
Were any backups made, either to an external hard drive or to iCloud?
Apple includes a tool to replace a Mac’s password. This is the best option if you have completely forgotten your password. Follow these steps:
1 . Turn off your Mac (choose Apple > Shut Down).
2. Press the power button while holding down Command + R. The Mac will boot into Recovery
3. When you see the load bar appear you can let go of the keys. It may take a few minutes to load.
4. Select Disk Utility and press Continue.
5. Choose Utilities > Terminal.
6. Enter resetpassword (all one word, lower-case letters) and press Return.
7. Select the volume containing the account (normally this will be your main hard drive).
8. Choose the account to change with Select the User Account.
9. Enter a new password and re-enter it into the password fields.
10. Enter a new password hint related to the password.
11. Click Save.
12. A warning will appear that the password has changed, but not the Keychain Password. Click OK.
13. Click Apple > Shut Down.
14. Now start up the Mac. You can log in using the new password.
If he encrypted the drive/volume you won’t be able to recover without spending a lot of money.
Sorry about your nephew.
Some good suggestions here. It depends entirely on the version of the OS. If you aren’t in yet, FReepmail me and I’ll try to walk you through it.
I dont know how helpful this might be, but when my macbook dies and is replaced, I take the SSD out of it and put it into an external housing. It means that I can connect it to my new one through the USB port (or whatever screwy port they are using these days.)
It becomes “another drive.” I don’t need a password to access it.
You might want to try that before getting too deep into “hacking.” Sometimes that leads to wiping out the drive.
ALSO, he might have a cloud account. I use that to save materials on my MacBook so I dont have to move files between that and my desktop.
Someone may be able to get the "original compositions and artwork" files off the hard drive without the password, but only if the hard drive is not encrypted. Basically, someone has to remove the hard drive from the computer, hook it up to another computer, and see if unencrypted files are accessible.
Best to have the job done by a professional.
Don’t do anything with it until you discuss with FReeper “Swordmaker”. DM him right now.
He’s your best bet here (and I say that as someone who writes Apple apps for major 3-letter businesses).
My condolences for the loss of your nephew. The best steps to recover the data were posted by Freeper Attila_the_Hun in the following post:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3865867/posts?page=12#12
He’s given step-by-step instructions on how to change the lost password for your nephew’s Mac data. These should work unless your nephew took extraordinary steps to protect his data (unusual). Let us know.
My apologies for the nasty comments from some Freepers about “cult” claims. They were uncalled for, and totally out of place. They cannot help themselves in their Anti-Apple bigotry.
She believes that he has his original compositions and artwork stored on it that he has never shown to anyone.
Yeah, sure.