How to recover TimeMachine password lost by MacOS?

Beeblebrox64 wrote:

1. I have a TimeMachine disk protected with a password and stored it to KeyChain. No problems so far.

2. I changed the user from Standard to Admin

3. After reboot, big problems: connecting the TimeMachine disk does no longer automatically read the password from the KeyChain.

4. Can I reconnect this? What is the TimeMachine's disk password entry in the KeyChain, how can I find it?

5. Searching KeyChain for "Time Machine", "TimeMachine" and the Diskname delivers no results. I searched all KeyChain sections shown in sidebar.

Someone can help?

I don't understand -- are you saying you don't know what the password is and you were depending on the Keychain to keep applying it ... forever, with you never knowing the password? That's a huge no-no, always be sure you know or have recorded such passwords somewhere in an encrypted manner so you can recover them. I have several external drives used for Time Machine and "clone" backups and my employer requires them all to be encrypted with a password. Those passwords are in Keychain but I have had to re-enter them when migrating to a new machine and a few other times as well. You would also be prompted for the password if your system detects you as a different user from the original one. Not sure how your switch from standard to admin user was handled, but might have occurred somehow.

Or have you entered the correct password and it no longer works? If that is the case, there may be a drive malfunction that is causing this.

For my external Time Machine drive, the password is in KeyChain Access, under login items, passwords tab, the name of the disk is listed, for me it is easy because the disk name starts with "2TB ..." so it is the very first item in the list. Look for the name of your external drive in an alphabetical listing in that part of Keychain Access. To see the password, I double click on it and check the box to show password. Then I have to enter my user password and it shows the external drive password. This is for an encrypted external drive.

If you find the correct password doesn't work, that is a bear of a situation with an encrypted drive because it means there was drive damage and with encryption, that's almost impossible to fix.

About the Time Machine backup password on Mac

To encrypt the Time Machine backup, you must provide a backup password. No one but you should have access to your password. Choose a hint that helps you remember your password. To restore files from encrypted Time Machine backups, you must provide your backup password.

Important: If you have iCloud Keychain enabled, you may be able to retrieve your backup password through Keychain Access. Otherwise, you can’t restore or recover your data if you lose or forget your password.

So in effect - if you have not found the password or do not have it stores some place elsewhere

Then is no chose but to Wipe the Drive and Start Over

1. User wrote " I changed the user from Standard to Admin

When you change account types " Standard to Admin " a new keychain in created in the New Account >> Admin

You may require logging out of Admin and back into Standard account to recover the Encrypted Password proceed TM Backup password