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Keychain password: What is it, how to find and change it

(Paradigm credit: Apple / Hereafter)

Thanks to countersign managers, the days of having to remember your countersign for every website are over. Apple Macs have one of the best countersign managers bachelor—Keychain Admission, which stores all your passwords securely and will automatically fill them in when you lot are asked for them by a website.

Considering it'southward handled automatically, most Mac users volition very rarely open the actual Keychain Admission app. So in this article, we'll explain everything you need to know about your keychain password—what it is, and how it can exist inverse.

What is Keychain Access and how does it work?

The Keychain Access app stores all your login credentials. (Image credit: Apple)

The keychain password is a kind of main password. When you add a new password to your keychain, as you are prompted to do when you lot log in to a new website, yous are giving your Mac permission to store and manage it. This ways that, the adjacent time you go to this website, your reckoner can fill the password in automatically. This process is managed through an app chosen Keychain Access.

As well equally saving you time typing out your passwords, the keychain is a very useful tool when it comes to keeping your data secure. The fact that you don't need to call up all your passwords means that you tin use more complex, stronger passwords, and can avoid using the same one for multiple accounts.

You can open Keychain Access from your Applications menu, or by clicking on Spotlight (the magnifying drinking glass icon that'southward always in the top correct corner of your screen) and typing Keychain.

Within the app, you lot'll encounter your list of keychains—groups of login details linked by a keychain password. By default, y'all're likely to run into four: Login (nigh online accounts linked to this device), iCloud (accounts stored in the cloud and accessible on your other Apple tree devices), Arrangement (passwords, certificates, and keys for Wi-Fi networks you access), and System Roots (just certificates). You lot tin can also create a new keychain if yous want to store a certain grouping of passwords under its own keychain password.

If y'all find your Mac asking y'all for your keychain password, which can happen when using or changing saved passwords, you may want to know what that countersign is and how to change it.

How to discover your keychain countersign

The uncomplicated reply is that the password for all four default keychains will be the aforementioned as the user password you use to log in to your Mac. With recent Mac updates, these keychain passwords accept get locked to the user password, then it is no longer possible to change one without irresolute the other. If you have lost your user countersign, you should look to Apple back up's advice for resetting it.

Withal, you may detect your keychains' passwords differ from your user password if changes were made to either before these updates came into place. If this is the case, then in that location's no mode to recover the keychain password, just y'all can reset it—meet Method three below.

Method 1: Change the keychain password by changing your user password

Your keychain password is usually the same as your Mac's user countersign. (Image credit: Apple)

The simplest fashion to change your keychain password is to modify your user password, since by default they are the same. Your keychain password will be inverse whenever your user password is changed.

In System Preferences, get to Users and Groups, select your account, and click Change Password. You will exist prompted to enter your old password before choosing a new one. This new password will be the ane to apply next fourth dimension you apply Keychain Access to view a password.

Method 2: Alter passwords for custom keychains

You can merely modify the passwords of custom keychains from within the Keychain Access app. (Paradigm credit: Apple)

Within Keychain Access, y'all can't change the password for the default keychains like Login and iCloud, but y'all tin create custom keychains and prepare a separate password for these.

Open Keychain Access through the Applications carte or through opening Spotlight and typing Keychain. To create a keychain, correct-click on the left-hand menu and select New Keychain. You tin gear up a proper noun and password for the new keychain.

With this new keychain open up, you tin add keychain items—which consist of a web accost plus a username and password with which to log in to that website—using the pen and paper icon in the top correct.

You can change the countersign for a custom keychain at whatsoever time by right-clicking on it under the Custom Keychains department on the left-mitt menu, and clicking "Change Password for Keychain _____."

Method 3: Reset your keychain countersign if yous have lost it

You can reset your Keychain from the Keychain Admission app. (Image credit: Apple)

If you don't know what your keychain password is and it's not the aforementioned as your Mac'south user account—which could be the case if you changed one of them before Apple tree's updates stopped y'all from changing one but not the other—then you volition have to reset it.

Open the Keychain Access app. In the carte du jour bar at the top of the screen, click on Keychain Access and and so select Preferences. A popular-up window volition announced. In this, click Reset My Default Keychain.

All your stored usernames and passwords will be deleted, just yous should be able to access your keychain, every bit the password will have been reset to your Mac's user account password. Yous may need to log out of your Mac and log back in for these changes to take event.

Summary

Apple's Keychain Access is a very useful tool that makes logging in to your various online accounts quicker and easier.

Since the password for your default keychains is linked to your Mac user account, the style to change the keychain password is to change the user password. Nonetheless, for more advanced password direction, you may want to set up custom keychains.

Keychain Access isn't the merely password manager tool available. If you desire to run into what other options are on the marketplace, see our guide to the best password managers.

Kieron Moore is a freelance author based in Manchester, England. He contributes to Futurity sites including TechRadar and Artistic Bloq, focusing on subjects including creative software, video editing, and streaming services. This work draws on his experience as an independent filmmaker and an independent Telly watcher. He can be plant on Twitter at @KieronMoore, usually when he'south meant to be writing.

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