Filed under: OS, Tips and tricks, Mac 101
Mac 101: Retrieve lost passwords
Everyone eventually forgets a password or two. It's OK, don't be ashamed. Even your friends at TUAW have committed this error. Honestly.Ivan at CreativeBits offers a simple way to reveal a forgotten password with Mac OS X's Keychain Access application. You'll find it in your Utilities folder (which lives in the Applications folder). It lists all the passwords you've stored for different applications (wireless networks, FTP servers, etc.). Just select the one you're interested in and perform a "Get Info" by hitting Command-I. Good luck, and write it down this time, will you?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
timaeus said 10:51AM on 5-21-2008
Actually, when I do this I get a dialog box with a check box that says "Show Password". When I check it the standard Keychain Access box opens up asking for, you guessed it, my password! What's up with this?
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Mike Piontek said 2:34PM on 5-21-2008
It wants the password for the user account on your Mac. It encrypts all of your other passwords using that password. The point of the keychain is so you only have to remember one password.
Unregistered said 10:32AM on 5-21-2008
Why does this warrant a post?
It's like saying you can use Safari to visit the Apple website.
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tuaw said 11:16AM on 5-21-2008
The Mac 101 posts aren't for everyone. I found it interesting and helpful. At least it's not another 3G iPhone rumor.
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michael said 10:53AM on 5-21-2008
so... any suggestion on restoring a keychain? i just upgraded to leopard doing a clean install. i had backed everything up to an external drive, but only was able to import my applications since i had also archived a few other externals on the drive in the home folder. so migration assistant said it couldn't copy over everything due to my internal drive being too small, and i lost all preferences in all my apps and saved passwords.
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Nigel said 12:16PM on 5-21-2008
Given that this is Mac 101 ... you should also point out that users can create new entries in Keychain Access to store passwords they create on different web sites. When you need a userid/password combination, just go to Keychain Access (little padlock symbol in the top menu bar in OS X), right-click on the entry containing the appropriate password, and select "copy password to clipboard." Keychain prompts for your main user password for your Mac and then puts the password from the keychain on the clipboard. Now you can go back to your browser and ctrl-v to paste the password into the web page.
Using Keychain Access to store all passwords for the web sites you visit means you can pick unique passwords without having to worry about remembering them or writing them down somewhere. You just have to remember your primary user account password.
Another handy feature is secure notes. You can record any sensative information in a Keychain note (e.g. credit card info) and it's securely locked away. When you need the information you can access it using your main Mac password.
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PSM said 1:24PM on 5-21-2008
This is a good reminder. I already do this, but everyone I've ever done it for has been surprised by it. I work in a lot of rehearsal studios in NYC, most of which have their own networks with impossible-to-remember passwords. When I return to a given studio my Mac of course remembers and automatically connects me, but then I have actors coming to me asking for the password for their Macs. Rather than get up and go ask at the front desk, I just look it up in Keychain. Without fail, everyone who has watched me do this says, "Wait, where did you go to find that? What's the Keychain?" Of course they probably don't read TUAW either, but it's definitely not something everyone knows.
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Ben said 10:33PM on 5-21-2008
So, could you remind me what the point of writing down a password that's in your keychain is?
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dawuss said 1:34PM on 5-22-2008
This is especially useful for all those times when you want to set up a WiFi connection on a new system, but forgot the WPA password. I use this all the times when at relatives or friends where I can't remember the password.
By the way, I don't think it's a particularly good practice to write down all passwords everywhere. Better back up the Keychain files and use this tip to read passwords you can't remember yourself. At least this way they are stored encrypted.
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vonjos said 6:41AM on 5-25-2008
you can use the keychain also to remember ANY password : visa card, door access codes, alarms, etc. just backup the .keychain in the your preferences folder and you're ok
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