As with Touch ID on the iPhone and iPad, when you first boot up your Mac, you have to use your password when you log in. After that first login, however, you're free to use Touch ID whenever waking your MacBook Air or MacBook Pro from sleep, switching users, authorizing store purchases, or via Apple Pay. How to log in with Touch ID. Designed for those who defy limits and change the world, the 16-inch MacBook Pro is by far the most powerful notebook we have ever made. With an immersive Retina display, superfast processors, advanced graphics, the largest battery capacity ever in a MacBook Pro, Magic Keyboard, and massive storage, it's the ultimate pro notebook for the ultimate user.
Learn how to set up Touch ID on a MacBook Pro or MacBook Air, which uses your fingerprint rather than a password to keep your data secure. Now you’ll be in the System Preferences pane for Touch ID and it’ll look like this: You can delete your fingerprint from here entirely if you want, or retain its functionality with other parts of MacOS X by simply unchecking the box “Unlocking your Mac“. Uncheck that, close the window, log out and you’ll now see a different login.
If you picked up a new iPhone 5s this weekend or are awaiting one in the mail, you’re probably aware of Apple’s new Touch ID feature, which is built into the iPhone 5s’s Home button. In case you haven’t yet set it up, however, here’s a primer on how to do so (and when you’ll have to fall back to your passcode).
What is Touch ID?
Touch ID is Apple’s new fingerprint scanner and security system for your iPhone 5s. It’s built into the Home button and reads up to five unique fingerprints. (Of course, if you feel like gaming the system, there’s a workaround that lets you map more than that, but we wouldn’t recommend it.) Currently, you can use Touch ID to unlock your phone and to pay for purchases with your Apple ID. Our own Jason Snell offers a more thorough explanation of the service in his iPhone 5s hands-on.
Is it safe?
Yup. (Macworld contributor and security expert Rich Mogull provides a fairly granular explanation of why it is.) Is it foolproof? No, but neither is a password. According to Apple, the chance that Touch ID will misread a finger is 1 in 50,000 —a much lower probability than the 1 in 10,000 chance for guessing a four-digit password—and Touch ID requires you to enter your password after five unsuccessful match attempts. As such, for the average user, Touch ID should be just fine.
If you’re particularly concerned that someone may grab your fingerprints off your iPhone screen (or elsewhere) and build a latex replica, use a finger you don’t often rely on—your pinkie finger, for instance.
If I set up Touch ID, how can I allow my spouse/child/passenger to use my phone? What if my fingerprint fails?
Touch ID is only one part of your iPhone’s security system. In setting it up, you must also set up a passcode (as a fallback identification system in case fingerprint recognition fails). If you choose not to use the fingerprint scanner, you can always swipe to the right on the lock screen at any time to access the passcode entry screen.
How do I set it up?
Mac Touch Id Manual Login Page
When you unbox your iPhone 5s, it prompts you during setup to enable Touch ID. If you choose to turn it on during this process, the setup routine asks you to place a finger on the Touch ID sensor repeatedly until the sensor has memorized and recorded your fingerprint. That’s one finger down, but you may want to set up more—to enable a family member to unlock your phone, for example. If you don’t activate Touch ID during setup, you can easily do so later on.
Your iPhone’s Touch ID settings are located in the Settings app, under General > Passcode & Fingerprint. If you’ve already set up a passcode, you must enter it in order to gain access to this screen—you can’t use an already-registered fingerprint to open this section.
The Passcode & Fingerprint screen controls your passcode settings and Touch ID settings, and determines what you can access while your device is locked. To change or add a fingerprint, tap the Fingerprints setting.
Here you can decide whether to use your fingerprint to unlock your phone and/or whether to use it in lieu of your password for the iTunes and App Stores. You can also view your current list of fingerprints, add new ones, and rename or delete them.
Add new fingerprints: To do this, tap the Add a fingerprint button. You’ll be asked to lift and rest your finger on the Home button. Every time your iPhone finishes capturing part of the fingerprint, the vibration sensor buzzes—it’s the easiest way to know when you should lift and replace your finger.
After it completes its initial read, your iPhone will ask you to scan the edges of your finger so that it has a complete scan.
Rename or delete fingerprints: When you add fingerprints, your iPhone not-so-helpfully names them “Finger 1” and “Finger 2”—maybe good for security, but not the most helpful naming strategy. To rename them, tap Edit and then tap the relevant fingerprint. To delete a stored print, tap Edit and then tap the red Delete button next to the entry.
If you don’t want to rename your prints, you can leave them with their default names and still know which numeral goes with which finger: When you place a finger on the Touch ID sensor, the entry it’s associated with flashes gray.
Disable Touch ID: Apple stores all fingerprints locally on your device with encryption, but you can disable Touch ID entirely if you don’t like the idea of having your fingerprints recorded. To do so, turn off the Passcode Unlock and iTunes & App Store toggles, and delete all fingerprints.
When does Touch ID not work?
One reason that Touch ID is such a good security feature on the iPhone 5s is that it’s not the phone’s sole security feature—you must also set up a passcode on your device, and you must use that passcode in a number of situations, according to Apple.
Specifically, you must enter your passcode after restarting or updating your iPhone; after going more than 48 hours without using your device; or when opening the Passcode & Fingerprint screen in Settings.
In addition, if you’re using Touch ID to make purchases, you have to enter your Apple ID password after restarting your iPhone; when enrolling or deleting fingers in the Passcode & Fingerprint screen; or when turning off the Find My iPhone toggle in iCloud.
Updated at 5:56 a.m. PT to fix an error where Find My Friends was mentioned in lieu of Find My iPhone.
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Mac Touch Id Manual Login Download
Even though you can set up your Mac to automatically log into your user account without a password, your computer is going to be more secure if you use one. Of course, there’s a slight danger that a day will come when that password doesn’t work—you’ve modified your Mac in some way that’s password-unfriendly or you’ve been negligent. Or you may simply forget what your password is, which can happen if you use a standard user account for daily tasks and haven’t touched the administrators account in awhile.
Fortunately, if you have lost your password, there are several approaches you can take for either regaining complete access to your Mac or, at least, getting to the specific data you need. Here are some tips for doing just that.
Resetting your Password
Apple includes several options for resetting account passwords in OS X. The approaches I outline below depend on how much access to your Mac you currently have.
Change it from an admin account
To maximize your Mac’s security you should have both an administrator account for administrative tasks and a standard account that you use for your primary identity (you can still perform administrative tasks from within your main account by authenticating with the administrator credentials). If you configure your Mac this way you can then log into the admin account and use the Users & Groups system preferences to change your main account’s password.
To do this, click the lock icon in the Users & Groups system preferences to authenticate, and then click the account you can’t log into. In the account’s settings, click the Reset Password button to change the account’s password.
Use Single-User mode
Every Mac has a main user account called “root,” which is the system account that’s used to launch the essential background services required for your Mac to operate. While this account is generally hidden and inaccessible, you can quickly get to it for its administrative capabilities by booting your Mac into single-user mode.
To proceed you’ll need to know the short name of the account for which you would like to reset the password, and then perform the following steps:
Restart your Mac and hold down Command-S at the boot chimes.
When you see the command prompt, enter the following command to put the boot drive into read and write mode:
mount -uw /Now run the following command to load Open Directory (Apple’s account directory service in OS X):
launchctl load /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.opendirectoryd.plistReset the password for your user account by entering the following command (replace “username” with the short name of the desired account)
passwd username
Use an Apple ID
In OS X you can bind your user account to your Apple ID and then use it to reset your OS X password if you’ve lost it. This feature first requires that you’ve associated your Apple ID, which can be done by going to the Users & Groups system preferences, and then clicking the Set button next to the words Apple ID and then supplying your Apple ID and password. You can then enable the option to allow resetting your password using an Apple ID. (If you instead see a Change button next to the Apple ID entry, your ID is already associated.)
Mac Touch Id Manual Login Screen
With this set up, you can reset your password by entering the incorrect password three times on the login screen, which will invoke a panel that prompts you to reset the account’s password using your Apple ID. Follow the on-screen instructions and you should be able to change your password and then log into your account.
Note that of the options I present here, this one should preserve the link to your keychain, allowing you to continue working seamlessly with your new password, without having to store other passwords in your keychain again.
Use Recovery Mode
A final option for resetting your password is to use Apple’s recovery tools. This will perhaps be the easiest approach in most cases, and can be done with the following procedure:
- Reboot into Recovery mode or Internet Recovery by holding Command-R at startup.
- Choose Terminal in the Utilities menu.
- Enter
resetpassword(all one word, and lowercase) in the Terminal window and press Return. - Select your boot drive in the utility that appears.
- Choose your user account from the pop-up menu.
- Click the button to reset the account’s password and supply a new one when prompted.
If you use FileVault encryption with your Mac, the password reset utility will not show your boot drive until you first unlock it with Disk Utility. To do this, open Disk Utility where you will see your drive grayed out in the list of devices. Select it and click the Unlock toolbar button and then, after supplying your password to unlock the drive, you can select your disk in the password reset utility.
Recovering your data
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The options I’ve mentioned will help you reset your password and log into your account. However, if you still can’t get into your Mac because of a lost or forgotten password there’s a way to get some of the data off of it. That way is Target Disk mode.
Target Disk mode lets you access your Mac’s hard drive as an external drive, provided that you don’t have FileVault enabled or a firmware password set on your Mac. If you do have FileVault enabled and can’t remember either your password for unlocking the drive or the drive’s recovery key, then you won’t be able to recover any data from it. In this case your best bet is to retrieve your data from a backup.
To use Target Disk mode, restart the Mac you wish to access and hold the “T” key when you hear the boot chimes. Connect this Mac to another one via either a FireWire or Thunderbolt cable and its hard drive should appear as an external drive to your second Mac. From here you can manually copy data from the drive or use Apple’s Migration Assistant or Setup Assistant tools to transfer your data.
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While you should be able to browse all files on the drive in Target Disk mode, there may be some times when you can’t do this, either because of permissions restrictions or because files are hidden. To overcome this, you can select the drive mounted via Target Disk mode, press Command-I to produce the drive’s Info window, and enable the option to ignore ownership on the volume (at the bottom of the information window). To manage hidden files, you can temporarily show all files in your current Mac’s Finder by running the following command in the OS X Terminal app:
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defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -bool TRUE; killall Finder
When you’re finished accessing these files, hide your files again by using this Terminal command:
defaults delete com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles; killall Finder
A safe haven
Much as recovering or resetting a forgotten password may sound like a bother, its a small inconvenience that’s entirely trumped by a Mac protected with a solid password. Ideally you’ll never need to turn to these techniques. But should the bad thing happen, it’s nice to know you have so many fallbacks.
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