Forget login passwords on computers and smartphones is quite common, so here’s how to recover our credentials on Windows, iOS and Android
L login passwords can be reset on any device and any operating system. This is great news if we tend to frequently forget our credentials to unlock our computer or smartphone screen. Here’s how to do it depending on your device.
Let’s start with a Windows computer. First of all, it should be said that on computers the access PIN is not a real way to protect our files. It is only a system to deter hackers. To really safeguard every document, hard disk encryption is more reliable. First of all, it must be said that on Windows we have basically two solutions to be able to use our PC if we have forgotten the initial password. One is to create a password reset disk and the other is to reset the password of our Microsoft account.
If we have forgotten the login password of our Microsoft account the first thing to do is to go to the control panel and then to the Account section. Once in the Account page we have to click on the “Create a password recovery disk” item. At this point we will be directed to a wizard. It is important to insert a USB flash drive or CD before continuing with the operation. Once the process is complete we’ll have a restore point to use if we forget the password again in the future. Resetting the Microsoft account password is an even easier operation. The important thing is to have associated a recovery email or phone number with our profile. All we have to do is click on the “forgot password” option and we’ll receive a temporary access code by email or SMS.
MacOS
If we forgot the password for our Apple account, all we have to do is access iCloud and recover or reset our password by email or phone number. Macs also have a tool to recover the password available in recovery mode. You’ll have to restart the Mac by clicking on the Apple menu and then select Restart. At this point we hold down the Command + R keys while the computer boots up and enter the recovery mode. Having done that let’s go into the terminal and type resetpassword and then hit enter. And we will be redirected to the page to change our password.
Android
If we own a phone with Android 4.4 KitKat or lower resetting the forgotten password will be very easy. At the fifth wrong attempt, in fact, a message via pop-up will ask us if we have forgotten the password. If we answer yes, we’ll be redirected to a new login page where we’ll just have to enter the access code of our Google account to regain possession of the phone. If we own a smartphone with Android Lollipop or higher, the forgotten password option is not available. From this OS onwards, Google doesn’t allow you to recover your PIN or unlock code easily. In this case, to regain possession of the phone we will have to perform a reset. This is a very secure system, but it will cost us all our data saved on the smartphone. If you are wise enough to make constant backups, you won’t have to worry about that.
iPhone and iPad
On iPhone and iPad, as well as on Android, there is no way to recover the unlock password without deleting the data from the device. If you’ve never made a backup, completing this task could mean losing all the files you have saved on your iPhone, iPad and even iPod Touch. There are three methods to erase every data on the device: using iCloud, iTunes or the recovery mode.