Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Get the password of any user in Mac OS X

This is how you can get the password of any user in Mac OS X. It is a technique called Swap File Hack.

You will first need to login as root. First login with an administrator account. If you don't have access to an administrator account please read «Crack Mac OS X Administrator password - create new admin account». Once you're logged in as an administrator, go to Applications » Utilities » NetInfo Manager and open it. In the top menu, go to Security and enable root user. Choose a master password. Than, logout, and log back with the new "root" account, with your master password.

Once your logged in as root, go to System Preferences » Personal » Security. Un-check «Use secure virtual memory».

Next, change the amount of RAM memory in the computer.Changing the amount of memory will create something called swap files, that include the passwords.

After the memory change, log back with the root account, open up Terminal, and enter this:


sudo strings -8 /var/vm/swapfile0 |grep -A 4 -i [longname]



Replace «[longname]» with the long name of the account you want the password. Look around for the word "password", and you should find what you need!

1 comment:

  1. I entered the command above with the long name (McCracken iT Technician) and the response I get is:

    grep: iT: No such file or directory
    grep: Technician: No such file or directory

    So I decided I would change the long name of the account to where it would not have any spaces (McCrackeniTTechnician). When I enter the command, I get nothing in return - no error or anything. Just another blank insertion.

    Any help? It would help to have a response in a couple days or so. I am running OS X 10.5. Thanks in advance.

    ReplyDelete