Where does Preview store hand-written signatures?

marconey wrote:

Thanks, while this quenched my immediate curiosity (yes, I found what you mentioned), it doesn't provide a solution to my quandary :o). I really wish Apple had added the option to import a graphic image.

Apple is about making technology easy to use. Sometimes that requires eliminating options that may be difficult to use for many people, difficult to maintain for Apple, and used by very few people.

Apple considers these signatures sensitive personal information. They are encrypted and stored in the keychain.

I don't think you can add signatures directly.

It is my understanding that Preview stores hand-written signatures as a digital certificate in the macOS Keychain. When you create a new signature in Preview, it will be saved as a digital certificate in your login keychain by default.

To try to locate the signature, you would use the Keychain Access app, as follows:

1. Open Keychain Access by searching for it in Spotlight or by navigating to Applications > Utilities > Keychain Access.

2. In the Keychain Access window, select the "login" keychain from the list on the left side of the window.

3. In the search field in the upper-right corner of the window, type "preview" and press enter.

4. Look for entries with a name like: Signature Annotation Privacy, with a Kind of: application password

Just print it out and hold it in front of the camera

marconey wrote:

Thanks but it would degrade the quality of the signature. As it is, it's not in very high resolution!

The camera has very high resolution. It will be fine.