Restore login keychain

Somehow the login keychain got trashed. How can I create a new one and set it to default. The old login keychain file still exists but is, of course, encrypted. It may or may not be useful. I created a new default keychain but it is a pain to type the password anytime an app wants to use it. Bob

Occasionally I will have a keychain run amok and my standard is to drag it out of the ~/user home/Library/Keychains onto the Desktop and reboot.
A new keychain will be created on login. I then add passwords as needed.
YMMV
If you are uncomfortable moving the keychain, make a copy or rename it in Terminal as shown in the article http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=306862

Similar Messages

How do I restore the login.keychain from a time machine back up in lion

I recently reinstalled Lion on my MBP after doing a back up with Time Machine. I don't want to restore everything using the migration assistant since the issues I was having were mostly due to my account. In Snow Leopard this process seemed very straght forward restoring keychains from the library folder under my user name. Now I can't find the login.keychain anywhere. I'm not sure where else the file might likely be. Any help much appreciated.

Navigate in the Finder to the /Home/Library/Keychain/ folder. Then open TM applications. Go back to the time from which you want to restore and select the file to restore.
For assistance select Help Center from the Finder's Help menu and search for "time machine." From the produced list select "Time Machine overview." Scroll to bottom and click on the link Restore items backed up with Time Machine.

Deleted Login Keychain by mistake--restore?

I was doing maintenance on wife's MBPro running 10.6.3--deleted login keychain by mistake--how do I restore?--Keychain repair gives error "login keychain missing"--

If you log out and log back in again the system should create a new, empty login keychain. I think that Keychain Access>Keychain First Aid can do this as well. You'll have to re-enter any passwords, etc that were stored there.

"Safari wants to use login keychain" how do I stop this message popping up

Hello out there!
Everytime I go to a new web page in Safari I box pops up on the screen with the message " Safari wants to use the login keychain. Please enter the keychain password." I click on the "cancel" button and the message disappears and I can get to the web page ok. It's just that having this message box pop up all the bloody time is driving me crazy. Is there anybody out there who knows how I can get rid of it entirely and restore my sanity please?
I don't want to use passwords or keychains.
Thank you so kindly for reading my posting and thank you in advance for any help.
Best regards Wooziewooster.

Ah yes, you may also (or instead) need to "Open Keychain Access, and choose Preferences from the Keychain Access menu, and click the Reset Keychain button. Enter your current login password and you're done." See http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=8318028&#8318028

Macbook pro mid 2012 backing up from disk ulitiy asking for "login" keychain?

I bought a "WD My passport For Mac 1TB" portable external hard drive since I can't get into my macbook pro mid 2012 10.9 because when I turn it on its just grey screen with apple logo and spinning wheel. I went to future shop to the geek squad and they did diagnose of it that is wasn't the hard drive but the operating system with problem. Which makes sense since I did the apple hardware test, disk repair/verfy, permissions repair/verify and they all came back with saying my volume is ok etc.
SO my question is to back up my files etc. I do the command + r and go to disk ulitiy and click on "Macintosh HD" and then click "New Image" and then select "My Passport for Mac" to save on there. What I want to know should I put "compressed", "read/write", "read only" or "DVD/CD master" for Image Format? AND For encrytion, do i pick "128-bit AES encryption (recommended)" or "256-bit AES encryption (more secure, but slower)"?
Also I have one more option before I go to my genius appointment on saturday is to do the "erase and reinstall" option. Of course I need to back up my files to do that which is why I am asking the questions above. Can any one link me to the "erase and reinstall" option OR tell me your experience on how to do it OR how to do in overall? Also, is it an effective method? I already have the important files on my google drive, have my microsoft disk stuff on my USB, the only app I kind of don't want to lose is my "Notes" app. Also for the apps I downloaded in Apple store they should be still there even if I erase my hard drive?
So I did the command + r and go to disk ulitiy and click on "Macintosh HD" and then click "New Image" and then select "My Passport for Mac" to save on there. I put "read/write" for Image Format AND For encrytion, i pick "128-bit AES encryption (recommended)"
I put in a password when prompted but after that it says "Disk Ultitiy wants to use the "login" keychain." I put in my ususally login password that I use to get on to my desktop but that doesn't work. I have the option to press ok or cancel. Can I just press cancel and will it contiune on backing my files to my external hard drive?
I pressed cancel and the progress bar to saving my macintosh HD to MY external hard drive portable isn't shown any blue bar progress for 9 mins now...
do u know what to do?

If you like you can also restore, via Disk Utility, the DMG onto another disk, but you will be able to read the contents, simply mounting the volume inside any version of OS X.
^ What do you mean by this?
Also, It says on here:Mac OS X v10.5, v10.6: How to back up and restore your files - Apple Support
When the imaging process is complete, select the newly created disk image in the device pane. Then, choose Images > Scan Image for Restore... from the menu bar, and let the scan complete.
Quit Disk Utility (press Command-Q). Then press Command-Q to quit the Mac OS X installer; you will be prompted to restart.
Restoring the backup disk image's contents to your internal Mac OS X disk
What does Images > Scan Image for Restore mean?
Also If I erase hard drive and then reinstall mavericks OS X from "command + r mode" and after that hopefully I can get back in would I hook my external hard drive and then open the copy of the "macintosh".dmg and drag everything back on? or...?

Combining user Keychain with login Keychain

Just recently did a Erase and Install upgrade to Leopard on my G5 and restored my previous Keychain Access data via Backup and my MobileMe account. This has created a separate Keychain file in my user/Library/Keychain folder with my user name, resulting in a login Keychain file and a user named Keychain file.
I have had the same Keychain since Jaguar and have been using Backup and my .Mac/MobileMe account to transfer my Keychain after upgrades and between my computers ever since. I did not notice the user named Keychain until I upgraded to Tiger on my old G4 a couple of years ago. Is the user named Keychain something held over from Jaguar?
The reason ask this is because I had some slight problems with passwords after upgrading to Tiger and I think it was because of having two Keychains -- one login and another user name. Currently, under Leopard, some new Keychain items are being added to both the login and the user named Keychains and not only is this redundant, it looks like trouble just waiting to happen.
First, without a separate user account would there even be a user named Keychain?
Secondly, can I combine the login Keychain and the user named Keychain to have a single Keychain file in the user/Library/Keychain folder?
Thirdly, is there any reason I cannot copy & paste Keychain items into one Keychain and delete the other -- leaving a single login Keychain?
Currently I have over 300 items in the old user named Keychain and only 8 or 10 in the login Keychain. I have been going through the old Keychain and eliminating dead-ends and duplicates. I have also tried copying & pasting items between Keychains and it seems to work.
Message was edited by: William Young2
Message was edited by: William Young2

Barney-15E wrote:
Anyway, if there is not much in the login keychain, set your named keychain as the login keychain (select it and then File menu>Make keychain "yourname" Default). You should move any keychain items over to the "yourname" keychain, first.
Then, delete the login.keychain and select the option to remove references and files. It should stop loading the login.keychain.
I don't know what will happen if you rename the "yourname" keychain in the finder, but you could try backing it up and renaming it login.keychain. When you open Keychain Access, you might have to reset it as the default. Backup first.
This is what I was thinking too. I think I will give it a try since there are less than a dozen items in the login keychain at the current time.
A couple of new items have been added to both the login and the usernamed keychains and I would just as soon have Keychain Access set-up as it would be from a new install -- without having to lug around a Keychain from Panther.
Thanks. I'll give it a try in a couple of days and report back.
will young

Login keychain problems

I accidentally deleted the "login" keychain instead of a specific key in that keychain. I then restored the keychain using backup3, which seemed to work. However, it won't store new passwords, and asks me if I want to reset my keychain to default (which sounds bad to do). I tried keychain repair...it "verify"'s fine but then terminates "unexpectedly" on repair (see log, below). In addition, even before all this trouble, I needed to re-enter my airport password everytime I used it (a new problem) recently...checking "save password in keychain" didn't work...even before the whole delete/restore business.
"Verification started
Checking keychain configuration for Darren (user ID=501)
Home directory is /Users/Darren
Checked login keychain
Checked default keychain
Checked keychain search list
No problems found
Verification completed
Repair started
Checking keychain configuration for Darren (user ID=501)
Home directory is /Users/Darren
Checked login keychain
Checked default keychain
Checked keychain search list
Added keychain ~/Library/Keychains/login.keychain to keychain search list
Repair terminated unexpectedly"
Darren

Back your iTunes by copying the entire folder to an external drive.
Create a Lion USB installer.
Boot from than, format the HD, and reinstall Lion.
Don't import anything automatically, just start your fresh install from scratch.
Copy the iTunes folder into ~/Music.

Creating new login keychain

In deleting and reorganizing files the other day, I somehow deleted my keychain(s). I've attempted to verify and repair things using Keychain First Aid and am told "login keychain not found." Attempts to simply create a new keychain by this name or any other names brings about the message, "An error occurred while creating a new keychain."
I've scoured the topics here but have not been able to find instructions specific to this type of issue.
Any advice on how I can restore the login keychain or create a new one is greatly appreciated!
Many Thanks!

Indeed it can, or you can perform a complete Archive and Install or you can first try the suggestions below:
Login as root and perform repair In some cases, problems with keychains can only be resolved when logged in as the root user.
First, enable a root user account, as detailed in Knowledge Base article #106290 (briefly: open NetInfo Manager, located in Applications/Utilities, click the lock and enter the administrator password, then select "Enable Root User" from the Security menu and follow on-screen instructions).
After enabling the root user, and logging in under this account, again open Keychain Access. First attempt repairs using Keychain First Aid, and failing that, delete then recreate the keychain as described above while logged in as root.
Please remember to log out as root user once you've finished dealing with Keychain.
Hope one of these helps,

Restore Safari Keychain data after Remove All

Restore Safari Keychain data after Remove All
I mistakenly removed all Safari Keychain data, which, of course, also removed the data from my iOS devices. I attempted a restore with a "Keychain" folder. It's on my desktop, but I'm not sure what to do with it or if it's even the right data. Can anyone help with how to restore keychain with Mozy? Thanks!!

From your Safari menu bar click Safari > Preferences then select the AutoFill tab.
Select: User names and passwords
Visit a website. Enter the login data. You will be prompted tos save that data to a new keychain.
Restore... as I mentioned previously, Mozy is not compatible with Keychain Access. There is no way to restore with Mozy.
In the future, you may want to use iCloud Keycahin to store login data.
Apple - iCloud - Learn how to set up iCloud on all your devices.

Restoring old keychain accounts and passwords?

Hi,
I had major folder problems with my system HD that were pretty much irrepairable with anything else other than Disk Warrior. After repairing directories with DW, my system HD didn't have a recognisable version of 10.4 on it. So I went ahead and carried out an 'archive and install' installation of a fresh copy of 10.4. I've reloaded my old Safari bookmarks no problem, but I'm having problems with my old keychain accounts and passwords. In my 'Previous Systems' folder after the archive and install, I went to ~/Library/keychains and couldn't find anything in there to throw into my new keychains folder... am I looking for the right file? Does the com.apple.keychainaccess.plist file in my home help at all? I tried using the keychain first aid on the keychain access .app but it was no help.
Please can you help? I have a rather large keychain list that I really really don't want to lose!

For those who are referring to this thread for the reason of the OP (Restore after Archive and Install), the keychain file that you want for Safari bookmarks is in your User file, so you need not freak out about not having backed it up. It is there in your Previous folder. You may have to do something tricky with the file permissions, but maybe not.
Here is what I did. I opened the current Users/YourUserName/Library/Keychains and right-clicked the login.keychain and made a copy of it. Then I moved the original to the trash. Then I copied the old login.keychain over from the Previous/Users/YourUserName/Library/Keychains. At some point I had to authenticate the action (moving the default login.keychain to the trash?).
This is such a relief to not have to re-enter all of my u/p's all over the place. I'd changed several of them since my last backup, so it's inspiration to backup more often.
For the record, restoring after an archive and install, mostly consists of dragging files from one folder to a similarly named folder in the new user folder. Sometimes there are subfolders or files that can not be overwritten (like this one), where you want to backup, delete, and copy, and sometimes you'll just want to let it keep the new one. Sometimes it is a new folder and you can just drag the folder to the new position as well. I haven't even gotten into the depths of working out all the kinks, but I'm impressed with how much has been recovered so far given that I thought I had to start over at one point. I'm going to get everything freshly backed up before re-installing 10.6.2--not to worry!
M@

Deleted Login keychain

For some time, since I upgraded my iMac to SL (tho not on my MacBook) Mail askes for p/w ever 10 mins on my Gmail a/cs.
I was told on another group I could delete the SMTP items (I don't think I had a problem with IMAP as I was getting mail even when it was asking for a p/w) and when I selcted te 5 items the whold Login keychain went and there seemed to be no Undo.
I feel I am living on borrowed time as I can't enter replacement p/ws there being no Login Keychain and fear being locked out totally, for instance if I have to restart ...
Can I restore it from my MacBook or even better from TM - if so how do I find it in TM and where does it belong? I have searcged for it on my MacBook and assume it is an invisible item.
Cheers, Colin
PS - All I seem to have left in the way of p/ws are those kept in a Secure note - thank gooness for that, but I can't apply them in the absense of a Login Keychain ...

Hi, and thanks.
I had just found it before I saw yor reply (Mail today thinks mail from Apple is spam), so I am now back 'in' having resored from TM.
I can now see how I went wrong in delting the whole chain (too easy and no undo that I coud see), but still don't see how to delete just smtp.google,com.
Anu ideas out there?
Cheers, Colin

Lost login keychain; Lost previous time machine backups with Lion install

I downloaded Lion and it would not install on my 2.66 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo 4 gb 1067 mhz ddr3 Mid-2009 Macbook Pro. I got the exclamation mark with hard disk irrepairable error. I took it to the local Apple store. They did a number of hardware tests and after several false calls saying it was ready (when I arrived to pick it up and tried to set up OS (select language etc) I got spinning beachball), I finally brought it home with Lion installed. All seems well, and I restored the data from Time Machine backup done under Snow Leopard. To my surprise, I find old versions of the login keychain - last updated 2010. I had 2 separate time machine backups going back six months, but when I tried to browse one for the newer keychains, I find that all previous Time Machine backups have been removed and all I have is the Time Machine backup from Lion install. So there are two related problems: one is that I lost keychain data and the other is that I can't restore from Time Machine backup since the only backups that seem to be there have restarted with Lion. Another factor, is that the technicians had to reset my user password in order to set up Lion and I subsequently changed it back to my own password. Any solutions to locating old time machine backups or restoring recent keychain entries?

How so I know...
Time machine preferences shows last known backup as NONE
NOTE: I found a section in the time machine prefs to use another backup file and all seems ok now
Thx

Safari wants to use the "login" keychain. -- Why can't Safari remember???

When I launch the Safari application, I get a dialogue box with a message indicating the following:
Safari wants to use the "login" keychain.
Please enter the keychain password.
Password:
Cancel -- OK
When I get this dialogue box, I enter the login keychain password in the Password text box, and I click the OK button. Then, Safari proceeds as normal. This is extremely annoying, because it happens almost every time that I launch Safari.
This only started to happen after I upgraded on Monday to Mac OS X Leopard version 10.5. During the Leopard upgrade, I had problems with the keychain passwords, and so I then upgraded again with the new "Login and Keychain Update 1.0". But, the problems with Safari forgetting the login keychain password continue.
The strange thing is that there is NO option in the dialogue box to indicate that Safari should REMEMBER the password. The option does NOT exist, so I can NOT click the Remember box.
I also went into the Keychain Access utility and double-checked and confirmed that my First Aid preferences were properly CHECKED for "Synchronize login keychain password with account" and also "Keep login keychain unlocked". Both of these preferences options are checked. So, I can't understand why Safari cannot remember the login keychain password?
I have this exact same problem with the Mail application, as well.
And, it looks like many many people are having the same problem -- See the following link to related discussions:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=5679135&#5679135
Can anyone please help? -- When is Apple going to release a fix for this problem? -- Has anyone received any kind of acknowledgement from Apple that they are aware of this problem and that they intend to fix it?
Please help !!!

I had the same experience and found a solution.
After the upgrade, I had a login keychain (the default) and my original username keychain. Both are in the chain of keychains, but since it has a choice, Mail keeps asking you to confirm.
I moved all the entries out of username into login, deleted username, and all is well.
Note that Keychain asks for your password on EACH ITEM that it moves, which can be tedious. So I changed the keychain password to a single character, just for the duration, then changed it back to something secure.
If, on the other hand, you don't have two keychains, then I can offer no suggestion.

Network user, network home folder, and the login keychain

I've got everything set up in WGM. I can log the user onto a workstation, and the home folder maps to the appropriate network location.
What I can't seem to do, is get a login keychain working. The keychain exists, in the proper folder on the network home folder. Keychain Assistant First Aid says everything is hunky dory. The problem is that the login keychain won't show up on the keychain list, nor can I add it. If I delete the file from the networked location and run first aid again, it says the login keychain doesn't exist and proceeds to create it, just like I'd expect. Only problem is, the keychain still doesn't show and I can't use it!
So any time I try to save email passwords, Safari passwords, etc. it errors out. Going through the prompted reset dialogs doesn't seem to do anything. I'm not seeing any console messages pointing to errors, either.
Anybody gon any ideas?

Ok then, I got one for you. Similar sort of thing. Just created a 10.6 server, created all the relevant users within WGM, then imported the home folders from the previous 10.5 server. Ensured all new UIDs matched the UIDs from the 10.5 WGM because it then simplifies permissions - i.e. all the permissions are recognised by the new server automatically for the right users.
Now for one of my users, her login keychain is never open by default. When you start Keychain Access (she's on 10.5.8 btw) you get the System keychain and the System Roots list of certificate authorities, but no login keychain.
Have checked the permissions of her ~/Library/Keychains/ folder and they're correct, as are the permissions for ~/Library/Keychains/login.keychain.
Double-clicking on the login.keychain file opens it up just fine in Keychain Access, however as soon as you close KA and re-open it, the login keychain's gone again.
I've tried importing a keychain, adding an existing keychain (obviously the login one) and creating a new keychain called login, none of which work - there's no error, it just ignores me.
I'd rather not create a temporary user account, transfer all the docsuments/mail etc, delete the original and recreate a new one using the old name and copy everything back, but unless someone can help me out, that's what I'm going to have to do.
There has to be some guru's out there somewhere that can help???
Thanks in advance,
Matt

Since upgrading to OS 10.8.5 login keychain corrupted keeps asking for password for OSX, mail and Safari. Solutions?

Ever since upgrading to OS 10.8.5 login keychain corrupted; keeps asking for pasword tor OSX, mail and Safari. Help!

Have you tried opening Keychain Access and running Keychain First Aid (under the Keychain Access menu) on the login keychain?

Restore login keychain

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