keychain Login

[harvdog47]

Since I had the "Genius Bar" reinstall my OS (last Fall) I keep getting a popup for each App that I use on my iMac or MacBook Pro requesting a keychain login. I cancel it and it's gone until the next App is used. I am currently using Apple Passwords and was wondering if I could delete the Keychain App and hopefully get rid of the nuisance pop-up request.

 

[ferrarr]

Why not login? Or create a "new" keychain?

 

[MacInWin]

Just log in with your account login id and password. You need to do that once.

No, you cannot delete Keychain Access, it's too tightly intertwined with the OS. Apple Passwords is connected to it and uses the same database.

I would recommend against creating a new keychain as that will erase every password and certificate in the old and also delete everything in Passwords.

Just log in.

 

[ferrarr]

I would recommend against creating a new keychain as that will erase every password and certificate in the old and also delete everything in Passwords

I haven't done it since Apple created the Passwords app, but the last time I created a new Keychain, all the passwords were still in Safari or whatever browser I was using at the time.

OP, have a look here, if you want to solve this issue;

Keychain Access User Guide for Mac

You can use Keychain Access on your Mac to keep track of keys, certificates, and other sensitive information in a keychain.

support.apple.com

 

[MacInWin]

I haven't done it since Apple created the Passwords app, but the last time I created a new Keychain, all the passwords were still in Safari or whatever browser I was using at the time.

Interesting. Not my experience at all. Created a new keychain, it was empty, nothing transferred or saved. I recovered the old data from a TM backup.

I suppose also if I had been syncing passwords through icloud I could have rebuilt the keychain database that way, but at the time I just had one iMac and no other Apple products.

 

[ferrarr]

Sorry, the new Keychain will be blank. But the passwords are saved in whatever app you use them with. Like I said, Passwords wasn't around then, but I would think it is the same?

 

[Rod]

Definitely DO NOT attempt to delete Keychain, it is an integral part of the Operating System. The Passwords app is part of Keychain, just a simpler User Interface to access personal passwords/Passkeys ect.
My advice would be to just login to Keychain next time it asks as per MacInWin's advice in post #5.

If for some reason you do not know your Keychain Access password please see here;

Delete a keychain in Keychain Access on Mac

In Keychain Access on your Mac, if your keychain has become inaccessible, you can delete it and manually create a new keychain.

support.apple.com

In the above article it explains how to delete your Keychain, **create a new one and restore your data to it.

**I did not know that Keychain Access data can be restored to a new Keychain from Time Machine.

 

[IWT]

**I did not know that Keychain Access data can be restored to a new Keychain from Time Machine.

Nor did I. In fact, I was "brought up" to believe that deleting Keychain resulted in a total loss of all data therein.

Ian

 

[Rod]

Well Ian, me too. I do remember a similar situation to our OP where during a "rebuild" of my macOS after a bit of a system disaster. I was given the option to either login to my Keychain or create a new one. I was using Time Machine to restore data as part of the Restore process. This was about 8 years ago. I tried logging in but it would not accept my password so I opted to create a new one.

After that I was, much like our OP, asked to enter my admin password for a lot of things but only once for each.

The article from Apple suggests that Keychain Access data can be restored to a newly created Keychain which would have been good to know back then.

Thinking about it now it seems fair and logical as my Apple ID and Admin status is confirmed by that stage of the Restore process.

 

[MacBiter]

It's probably fair to say that Passwords has a similar relationship to Keychain as Disk Utility has to Terminal, and you certainly wouldn't dream of deleting Terminal!.