Forgot your Ubuntu Password? Let's Recover it!

You will be surprised by how common it is for people to forget their passwords. At the time of writing this article, we got 1.4 billion Google search results for “I forgot password”. This is a testament to how often people forget their passwords and If you happen to be one of the people who have searched “I forgot Ubuntu password”, then this article is for you. 

 

When you don’t have a good password management system in place, forgetting your passwords can be a usual occurrence. The first level of defense that your email, social media account, mobile device, or computer has, is a password. When you fail to make them unique and strong, you are essentially failing to provide effective security for your accounts or devices.

 

Creating “hack-free” Passwords

Before you set your new Ubuntu password that you won't forget, consider these tips. 

 

The objective of having a password, it’s so that you can keep unauthorized persons from gaining access. Hackers will not barge just because you have a password, but a complex one that’s hard to crack will force them to retire all their efforts. It's, therefore, important that you put more thought into creating secure passwords.

 

To create your Ubuntu password strong, you should include Upper and lower case characters, at least one number (0-9),  and a symbol. The total number of characters should be at least 10 or more, and it should not be words or phrases that anyone can easily associate with you, just like your pet’s name, child/ partner’s name, etc.

 

Resetting Ubuntu Password

We understand that you may not be using your Ubuntu account regularly, and that’s why you probably just can’t remember your password. Let's get it out of the way that you fortunately won’t lose your Ubuntu data, even if you had not backed it up. 

 

You will need to boot Ubuntu into the Recovery Mode to reset your password. To do this, you should restart your system while pressing and holding Esc or the left-side Shift button, Once the GRUB boot menu is loaded, use your keyboard arrows to highlight Recovery mode, and then press Enter to select it.

 

After the boot-up process completes, a Recovery menu will show with options to choose from. Move down your keyboard to highlight root and press Enter to select drop to root shell prompt - this will enable you to execute commands. At the root shell prompt, remount the storage with write permissions enabled by typing this command: 

mount -o remount, rw /

 

Then type this command: Password username to reset and create your new password and username.