...sign of our times...

Upon being handed a journal as a gift, a nine year-old asks his mom what it was. The mom says that it was a notebook to record his thoughts and feelings, every day. The kid replies, "You mean, it is a blog...on paper." Reader's Digest, Oct 2008 issue


How to remove MDM lock on a MacBook Pro (Monterey)

This applies to a MacBook Pro (intel chip) from 2018, 15”. Please see the video link below for other OSes and M1 Macs.

After struggling with implementing several unsuccessful versions of how to get past the “Device Management” popup (aka MDM lock), on Reddit, YT, Quora, I came across a video on YT (for Sonoma and Ventura) which nonetheless gave me an idea of how to modify it for Monterey. There is nothing to it, really. Thanks to WILLFIXIT! on YT.

Problem: After installing a fresh copy (or maybe it came installed) of macOS Monterey on your new (used) Mac, either from Craigslist or Amazon, or eBay or your own company (reselling old Macs), you might run into a screen that blocks you from continuing OS Setup by asking for credentials that are locked into the Mac (and at Apple). There is not a thing you can do to overcome that! Nada!

Solution:

Simple and fast

  1. Reboot your system with Cmd+R pressed
  2. Open Disk Utility and see what the name of your hard drive is (mine said “Untitled” and presumably, the data portion, “Untitled – Data”
  3. Change the name of the volumes from whatever it is now to “Macintosh HD” and “Macintosh HD – Data”
  4. In Terminal, run this command (type in terminal) to download the bypass-mdm.sh file.
    c u r l https://raw.githubusercontent.com/assafdori/bypass-mdm/main/bypass-mdm.sh (the letters c u r l should be typed without spaces (like in curl); there is some backend security on my webhost that prevents me from typing that word without spaces with other commands following it!)
  5. type: chmod +x ./bypass-mdm.sh (to make this file executable)
  6. Select option 1, and go through the prompts (I chose default names and password) after which (if no errors)
  7. Reboot normally and continue with setup (you should no longer see the “Device enrollment” popup. If there were errors in the above step (after you pressed 1), make a note of them. If they say anything like “No such file or directory” or“File not found” etc., then most likely the name of your volume does not match what is expected (“Macintosh HD” and “Macintosh HD – Data”). See method below.

Longer method

  1. Enter Terminal
  2. Download the “bypass-mdm.sh” file using this command (type at the Terminal prompt):
    c u r l https://raw.githubusercontent.com/assafdori/bypass-mdm/main/bypass-mdm.sh
    the letters c u r l should be typed without spaces (like in curl), there is some backend security on my webhost that prevents me from typing that word without spaces with other commands following it!
  3. You may have to change permissions on it (type: chmod +x ./bypass-mdm.sh) to execute it
  4. Using vi (or nano or some text editor), open the downloaded file: nano ./bypass-mdm.sh
  5. Look for “Macintosh\ HD” and replace it with your volume name
  6. Look for “/Volumes/Macintosh HD – Data” and replace with “/Volumes/your volume name – Data”
  7. Save the file (in vi, it is ESC, :, wq (enter)”
  8. Run the file: ./bypass-mdm.sh (enter), select option 1 and go through the prompts (I chose default names and password) after which (if no errors)
  9. Reboot normally and continue with setup

If you are unable to get to the original bypass-mdm.sh file, here it is (download it and edit it)

YMMV and good luck unlocking!

- posted Dec 22, 05:27 pm in

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