When troubleshooting your Mac, it helps if you can log in as a different user. Instead of creating a new user, you can enable Root. Here’s how:
- Open Finder,
- Browse to Applications -> Utilities,
- Open Directory Utility,
- Click the lock to make changes,
- Enter your password when prompted,
- From the Taskbar go to Edit -> Enable Root User,
- Enter a new password for Root,
- Confirm the password and click OK,
- Close Directory Utility, and log out of your Mac,
- At the login screen, click the picture for Other…,
- Type the username root, with the password you previously set.
The root account should only be used when absolutely necessary, and when you know what you’re doing.
Or do this, in terminal:
sudo passwd root
It will then ask you for the password.
Hi Charlie,
This will only work of the root account is already enabled, it’s disabled by default.
Regards,
Paul.
I’ve just played around with this, and you’re correct. My apologies.
When using
sudo passwd rootthe shell will return with an error message:
passwd: Unable to change password for record root. Account is disabled.Despite this error message, the root account is enabled, as is confirmed by using
suto login as root.
Thanks Charlie for pointing this out.
Cheers,
Paul.
well, how do i disable Root user??
Once root is enabled, the Edit menu in Directory Utility will display a “Disable root” option.