Q: how can i deactivate keychain

Log in keychain or iCloud keychain?

I have the same problem.  The passwords don't work, it freezes my machine, it pops up constantly, have tried resetting,...

I have talked to people and most of them don't have a clue as to what I am talking about, and I can't seem to find any answers.  I have tried most everything so for right now when the sign-in pops up I hide it as far in the corner of the screen as possible to ignore it.   In fact in trying to change the passwords it totally changed my
Apple ID password and I had to go in and reset that.  Now it is even more confusing because when I try to reset the passwords it take up to an hour before I get the verifying e-mail.  I just found the support communities and am hoping that I can find some answers here, but thus far all I am finding is the repeat of the same question.  Anyone out there?  Please.

re cavemouse

Keychain is where most applications can and do store passwords on OS X, and more than a few things need and use passwords.

There's no way to shut off Keychain.

You can choose to not use it certainly, but then you're entering passwords everywhere — which usually doesn't end well for your data, your computer, and your contacts.

Password popups can arise for various reasons — network errors, bad passwords, a keychain corruption, problems with some tool, etc.

Please post some details of what the prompts are asking for — which applications, or when.   Mail can sometimes get itself very confused, and there are two sets of passwords associated with mail — one for sending and one for reading and receiving mail — and removing and re-adding the mail server account can sometimes help with that.

But that's a guess — what's happening here depends on what is prompting for passwords, and why.

What you are saying makes sense so I don't really want to get rid of it.  I did follow what Mr. Rabbit posted about going in and resetting the passwords through the preferences menu.  I got one Calander want to use login password and i put it in and it accepted it.  I also did the keychain first aid on it.  I will not know for sure if it was entirely successful until I use it for a while, because it depended what I did as to whether it would ask.   I opened several different items and the only one I had a problem with was the one that used the Apple ID but I got that straightened out.  Hopefully it is better.  Thanky you for your insight.  It was driving me crazy because it was just popping up all the time and nothing was working.  I will know better when I shut it down and reopen it later.  Again, thanks.

well about every 10 ins it pops up with:

accountssd wants to use "login" keychain.  It accepts the password but continues to pop up about every 15 ins.  If I cancel it then: AddressBookSourceSync wants to use "login" keychain and if I cancel that it says CalandarAgent want -.......keychain.  If I cancel that it goes back to accountsd. 

First, ensure you have Time Machine configured and running and a complete and current backup, or some other tools for automated backups — those are necessary in general, and are your path should anything go wrong in general, or with the following steps.   Yes, problems caused by repairing the keychain are extremely unlikely, but I'd rather not be responsible for any data loss — even if the chances are remote.

More than a few folks around are running with no backups, and that can lead to a Really Bad Day for your data — whether due to an errant application or a command input mistake, a disk file system corruption, or a disk error or catastrophic disk failure, no backups can mean data loss.

Then.... Follow the keychain first aid sequence, and let us know whether that finds and repairs anything, or whether that finds an unrepairable error or some other issue — post some details of the first aid findings.

OK so I went in and this is what the Keychain first aid said:

Verification started

Checking keychain configuration for coach_sue (user ID=501)

Home directory is /Users/coach_sue

Checked login keychain

Checked password for ~/Library/Keychains/login.keychain

Checked settings for ~/Library/Keychains/login.keychain

Settings for ~/Library/Keychains/login.keychain may cause the keychain to be locked

Current values: lockOnSleep=yes, autoLock=5 mins  --- (this is in blue)

Checked default keychain

Checked contents of ~/Library/Keychains/login.keychain

Verification completed

So I can see why the password is coming up every 5 mins, but I am not sure how to find it to change the setting.OK so I got there and although the lock after XXX mins was not I checked, I clicked lock when sleeping and saved that.

Then I clicked verify and this is what I got:

Verification started

Checking keychain configuration for coach_sue (user ID=501)

Home directory is /Users/coach_sue

Checked login keychain

Checked password for ~/Library/Keychains/login.keychain

Checked settings for ~/Library/Keychains/login.keychain

Checked default keychain

Checked contents of ~/Library/Keychains/login.keychain

No problems found

Verification completed

I am hoping that this will make the difference.  I will not be using this system for the weekend so I will know better on Monday when I fire it up again.

Thank you , again, for your time.