Deleted entire keychain

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Level 1

9 points

Deleted entire keychain

Hello. Does anyone know if the macOS base system carries any keychain information, specifically certificate and trust? I know it doesn’t hold any data. But I am not sure if any of the keychain information transfers upon a reinstall?I am doing a clean install with a manual transfer afterwards. i’ve had some suspicious items on my Mac, and in my keychain. Before thinking about it I decided to delete absolutely everything including certificate encryptions etc. In restore mode once I delete my Mac HD data, and then erase my Mac HD, is it safe to do a reinstall? I just wanna make sure there’s nothing that can be read once I connect online after deleting all that data in the keychain.

Posted on Mar 7, 2021 12:05 PM

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Answer 1

Owl-53

Level 10

108,757 points

Mar 8, 2021 2:37 AM in response to Artgirl101

If using the method you have described is used and manually transfer back - whatever is being removed now might be brought back again with the Manual Transfer. As for macOS Base System - it does not contain any Keychain info.

Should one what a very very Clean Install - there is a method involving Create a Bootable Installer and boot from it and then Totally Wipe the Drive 100% of ALL information - this includes macOS, Recovery, Personal Apps, data etc. It is basically having an almost Brand New computer and setting it up like New. Must warn - this is a semi-long process and doable.

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Answer 2

steve626

Level 6

16,333 points

Mar 7, 2021 9:14 PM in response to Artgirl101

If by a clean install you have erased and reformatted the drive, a reinstall of a vanilla MacOS from Recovery would set up your computer very much like a brand new computer from the Mac Store, no user info at all until you transfer it over from somewhere else.

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Deleted entire keychain

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