How can I stop the constant "Passwords are locked" popups on my MacBook?

This started happening to me. Based on the input from the community it appears that this can be caused by a number of different things.

After much frustration I have found the counterintuitive solution for my experience.

The problem resides within Browsers / Password management

To fix:

Settings -> Passwords

You will be prompted to enter a password

Select Password Options.

AutoFill Passwords and Passkeys

• Make sure this setting is disabled.

This option might not work for you especially if you utilize Apple Password Manager. I utilize external password management.

How this setting got enabled? "I will never know".

Hope this helps!

I've had this problem too. Most of the advice on this thread and other websites weren't fixing the problem for me. What helped get rid of this for me was simply restarting my MacBook. I'm not sure what causes this issue, but this solution really fixed it.

I've had this going on for pretty much all of Sonoma. Seems to be triggered by doing anything that causes this pop-up to come up normally, and then it will keep popping up randomly until I reboot, which "fixes" it until I trigger it again. I was on Sequoia only very briefly, so I don't remember if it's still an issue there, but as the current focus of the dev beta isn't on minor bug fixes like this, I doubt it'll be resolved any time soon.

Check your Lock Screen setting

The computer is set to Lock too fast / to soon

Since the 14.2.1 update (unsure as to when that was), I've not seen this problem. I'm betting it was fixed in that release. Fingers crossed :)

Narrow it down. Pretend like you’re a professional QA man from before QA was abolished from software development, and everything was published as alpha software.

FYI, in my case it turned out to be Brave browser constantly requesting access to Passwords. I have too many tabs open to figure out exactly which page it is, but I’ll get there eventually. Good luck!

I just started getting this issue today. I looked it up to make sure it wasn't malware....

After resetting password options (I like them on, but I turned them all off then on) it seems to have gone away...

**Nope... came back after 20 mins or so...

Seems related to Touch ID image in following link and related to unlocking the Lock Screen

Passwords are locked popup - Apple Community

I'm seeing this on my M1 Macbook Air as well. It's not keychain, touch ID, screen lock, any of those things. It's related to Settings -> Passwords. But there's no option for timeout or the like on that screen in Settings. This has been happening for a few weeks. Sonoma 14.1.2.

Yep, totally agree. It definitely seems like it's not keychain, Touch ID or lock screen related.

Fortunately for me, it hasn't happened since installing the 14.1.2 update (fingers crossed!). Since you're running that version and it's still happening, I'm afraid I don't have any advice. I mainly just wanted to support your hypothesis.

Just started getting this with the latest macOS 14.3 update - but have not changed any settings since the install completed. Tried various cache cleanups but nothing has worked yet. It is very annoying, and even comes up when the Brave browser is minimised!

Version 1.61.120 Chromium: 120.0.6099.234 (Official Build) (arm64) - M1 MacBook Pro 13" 2020 16Gb/2Tb

Yup - same here, after a couple of reboots. I hate it when I can't find a decent explanation for something. Apple hasn't sent out any updates to fix anything, so I doubt they 'quietly resolved the problem'. And Brave was a red herring. It was popping up when no browsers were running.

it happens to me for a couple of days. nothing is fixed. for me, it got newly "added".

Apple had grown to such a bad bad company.... stunning ....

guess i have to send back my mac ... Apple is such a shame ..

This started to happen to a team member.

The solution above did not work for them as a final / complete workaround.

Additional steps were required

• Go through guide above
• Once completed Unlock VIA popup 1 final time
• After unlock has occurred restart the computer.

After these steps were completed the popup has not come back for them yet

*** 3 hours and counting.

I am actively having this issue. My device is a MacBook Pro, 13-inch, M1, 2020 (A2338). I'm running macOS Sonoma 14.4.1.

I've seen the issue happening recently ever since I started using Edge about a week or so ago. Even when I fully quit the app and it's not running, it happens to pop up at times.

I also use Google Chrome and when I have both Safari and Chrome open, I tend to notice the issue more. I notice it less when I have only Safari running.

I don't know if it's a browser issue or macOS issue, but if there's any progress on this, I'd like to hear it.

Thanks.