The dsenableroot command can be used to enable the root user and assign it a password. To enable root: dsenableroot You will then be prompted for a password to assign the root account and then to verify the password. On success you’ll see the following success code: dsenableroot:: ***Successfully enabled root user. To then disable the root account: dsenableroot -d You should now be able to look into the /var/db/dslocal/nodes/Default/users directory on your system and see root.plist. You can then make any changes to the account using this file that you would like.