Forgot Keychain Password? Here’s What You Should Do

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keychain error mac

As a Mac user, you are probably aware of the Mac’s Keychain. This password management tool for Apple stores the passwords for all the applications and websites that you visit and this makes it easy for you to browse and use the apps on your PC and iPhone.

Keychain also stores your sensitive personal information such as the PIN codes for your online banking platforms and credit card details and this makes securing the keychain one of the things that you must do to keep your information and logins safe. Apple allows you to do this with a password.

You should remember your password at all times if you want to access the keychain but if you forgot the keychain password, this will not be possible. This means that you will not be able to access the logins for your favorite apps as well as your online banking details and this can be quite frustrating.

To help you in this regard, we have compiled this guide that takes a look at a few measures that will help you reset the keychain password without the old password.

How to reset the keychain password

Your apple keychain password is the same as the password for your Mac user account and if you forgot your keychain password, this means that you have also forgotten your mac password.

You can reset the password for your Mac user account but your local items keychain password will not be changed. It still remains the same and as such, the only solution when you can’t remember the keychain password is to reset the keychain password.

This solution basically sets aside your old keychain and allows you to set a new one but don’t worry, you can still recover the old keychain when you remember its password at a later time.

With that in mind, let’s now take a look at the measures that will help you change the password for your keychain login after it has greyed out.

Set up a new login keychain

As mentioned earlier, you will have to create a new keychain account if forgot your keychain password. After resetting your administration password and logging into your Mac, you will be notified that the system was not able to unlock the keychain login.

This is the case because the passwords for your admin account and keychain login don’t match after the mac administration password reset. To create a new keychain login you will have to;

  1. Launch Keychain Access to begin the process. Keychain Access can be found in the utilities section of your Application folder.
  2. Select “Preferences” from the Menu.
  3. Click the “Reset My Default Keychain” button from the “Preferences” menu.
  4. Set your new Keychain password for iPhone and Keychain Access will automatically create a new login keychain that is empty.
  5. Confirm your new keychain by clicking the Ok button.

There is also the likelihood that you may not see the “Reset My Default Keychain” button when performing the keychain password reset action but when this happens, you need not worry as there is still another way to navigate this challenge.

You simply have to shut the “Preference” window and click on the “login” button that is to the left of the Keychain Access Window. Click “Delete” and follow this up by pressing the “Delete References” key.

Using the apps that use keychains to reset the keychain password

This is another method for resetting your keychain password and it relies on the apps on your Mac that use keychains and here are the steps that you must follow in this regard.

  1. From Mac finder, select “Go menu” and hold the “Options” key until the library menu appears.
  2. Select Keychains from the menu and delete the keychain folder.
  3. Launch an app that uses keychain such as Safari and it will notify you that the safari keychain password cannot be found.
  4. Click the “Reset to Default” button on the same page and confirm the action.
  5. You will be prompted to enter the admin password as the keychain password. Do so and then restart the program.

Forgetting your keychain password will make it hard to use the applications that want to use the keychain password and this can be quite frustrating. Use the tips mentioned above to solve this problem.