I've searched far and wide (and all over this site) for a way to recover passwords on an OS X machine and I can't find any. Does anyone have any ideas?

The basic problem is that I'm updating a solution from FM 3 to FMP 8. The password for the old version no longer works in the FMP 8 file. I've tried all the tricks in the FileMaker Knowledge Base and everywhere else that I can find to no avail. So, now I need to crack them.

Not knowing which tricks you tried, I suppose we can start from the top:

FM7 & FM8 now use case sensitive passwords. If the FM3 file had some combination of upper and lower case letters, that combination is required. If you're not sure what the password case was, look in the FM3 file.

In converted files, the account name can be left blank (just enter the password). When you can get in successfully, you should change the account name to something that makes more sense.

The tricks that I've tried (note: the original password is/was mixed case and when I say "pass" I mean the original password)

User: pass (mixed case, all upper case, and all lower case)

Password: pass (mixed case, all upper case, and all lower case)

User: Admin

Password: pass (again, mixed, upper and lower)

User: Administrator

Password: pass (mixed, upper, & lower)

User: blank

Password: pass (mixed, upper, & lower)

User: pass (mixed, upper, & lower)

Password: blank

I had a previous database that I upgraded, and the password was orginally lower case with special characters and it turned into mixed case (*det*admin turned into *DET*Admin (not the actual password, but same format) ) so if the password for this file IS mixed case with special characters (similar to Sq7tDET$rv) then what does that turn into?

Now the other joy is that I don't have a copy of version 3 or 4, the lowest version I have is 5.5 (password doesn't work after upgrade to 5.5 either).

The password case does not get changed by the conversion process. It is what it was.

Also, FM5.5 uses the same passwords as previous versions, so the same password should work in 5.5 as FM3 (regardless of case). If it's not working, then it was probably changed by you or someone else.

If you're up a creek, you might check if FileMaker still offers a password recovery service. There are also some third party companies that do this.

I know that there are third party companies that have third party software to do this, but all those pieces of software are Windows based. I'm looking for an OS X solution.

Try the same word for both the Account name and the password. See if that opens the file. Passwords are not stored in FileMaker Pro 7 or 8 files; hence they cannot be retrieved.

Steven