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I am trying to strengthen the login password i use on my mac as i feel its the weakest link in all my password. I use 1password for all my website passwords, but of course i need to be able to remember my login password so its a lot weaker.

1password has the option to generate "four word" passwords, that are random words that are memorable as a login. In their documentation is says that these are very strong because they are well hashed.

So my question is, if i use their generator to generate a random 4 word password for the login of my mac, is that just as strong?

As far as i understand it depends on the hashing a mac uses and also how long it makes the computer wait between attempts right?

Thanks for any help!

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Your Mac password is well protected by macOS in every way. If you are so worried that someone might be able to crack your password, simply enable FileVault Encryption and a Firmware Password. This will prevent others from using Recovery Mode attacks which is the only way possible to extract the password hash and crack your Mac password. Even if your Mac login password's hash is extracted, it is very difficult to crack and may even take days for dedicated applications to crack. Your password would be just as secure whether it was your regular Mac password or a 1Password generated password as long as you have FileVault and a Firmware Password turned on. Even without both, your password is very secure but it is recommended to have both of those enabled.

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  • Thank you very much for the info guys. This is everything i need.
    – hardtofin
    May 27, 2020 at 13:16
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I would make a very long but somewhat easy to type password for a rescue admin account. Then secure your account with a different password, also long but easy to type and hardware key fob.

If it’s not worth this much time to secure, just choose an easy-to-type-and-not-used-anywhere-else-by-you type password for your Mac. The weak link us people, installing software that steals passwords, so if you don’t reuse passwords, one compromise if firewalled and macOS is pretty easy to secure against remote access if you feel that is your biggest risk.

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