Sequoia: Keychain Access cannot create a new secure note

BruceH2013 wrote:

Is this a bug?

No. Keychain Access is deprecated. You can store secure notes in using the Notes app, as described here: Store confidential information securely using Notes on Mac - Apple Support

If you have any existing secure notes in Keychain Access, I recommend moving them.

I also made use of the Secure Notes feature in Keychain Access, and am sad to see the feature being deprecated.

I noticed that the Notes app has a new feature: Lock Note. You can find it by right-clicking on a note, or via the lock icon in the toolbar. You get the option of encrypting with your login keychain, or a new password.

A tool to migrate secure notes from iCloud & local keychains into Notes, or some other format, is needed. It would nice if Apple provided the tool. Maybe they will, when they fully deprecate the Secure Notes out of Keychain Access, or remove Keychain Access altogether.

In the meantime, I created a folder in Notes called "Secure Notes", and will create my new notes in there, and lock them.

What I did was name the "password" entry as the name of the note (it doesn't seem to require a URL for the "password" entry. so I treated it like the title of the note.

if the note relates to something like a server, cert, GitHub repository or whatever I put in the account name and same for password.

now as this is a note not an actual account I could put anything in the account name and password just to get past the internal verifications of actually having an entry. but it's all bogus.

Then in the actual notes field I put my note sort of similar in a way to how you could create a secure note in keychain previously.

and I know for a fact this note will be always encrypted in transit and will be available to my phone and tablet.

and yes it could have been a bit clearer as to how to do all of this rather than simply say oh there is a new app and we moved a bunch of stuff to the new app and removed it from the old app; but we're keeping parts of the old app around just to create even more confusion.

Owot wrote:

No. Keychain Access is deprecated. You can store secure notes in using the Notes app, as described here:

Store confidential information securely using Notes on Mac - Apple Support

If you have any existing secure notes in Keychain Access, I recommend moving them.

You didn't even read that link. It describes how to store secure notes on Mac using Keychain Access! The very thing you are saying is deprecated and everyone else here is complaining about!

There is a link in there that goes to using Keychain Access, but the main article is how to created a locked note in Notes. Nothing to do with Secure Notes in Keychain Access.

I guess if you clicked the main link, then happened to accidentally click on the Keychain Access link, you might have somehow thought it had to do with Keychain Access.

The link you give is to the Keychain Access User guide. The URL is support.apple.com/guide/keychain-access/kyca2268/mac. It is only about secure notes in Keychain access. I will reproduce the full text of the link here for your reference:

Store confidential information securely using Keychain Access on Mac

You can use Secure Notes in Keychain Access to store confidential information. This information can be completely unrelated to your computer, such as combinations to locks, personal identification numbers (PINs) for bank accounts, credit card numbers, confidential notes, cryptographic keys, and any other information that you want to keep private.

Create a Secure Note

1. In the Keychain Access app  on your Mac, select a keychain in the Keychains list.

2. If you’re not sure which keychain to pick, it’s recommended that you use iCloud Keychain to store secure notes. Notes that you create are available and updated across your devices (when you’re signed in with your Apple ID).

3. Choose File > New Secure Note Item.

4. Type a name for the note to help you remember what it is.

5. In the Note field, type or paste the information you want to preserve.

6. Click Add.

View the contents of a Secure Note

1. In the Keychain Access app  on your Mac, select Secure Notes in the Category list.

2. Double-click the note, then select the Show Note tickbox.

3. You are asked for your keychain password if you haven’t selected “Allow all applications to access this item” in the Access Control pane.

4. Type your login password to see the note, then click Allow or “Always allow”.

5. If you want this note to be secure, don’t click “Always allow”.

Thanks for pointing out that Notes has this facility though. I did a bit of digging, and I think the link you meant to supply was this one: Lock your notes on Mac – Apple Support (UK) (this URL for clarity support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/notes/not28c5f5468/mac).

Barney-15E wrote:

Owot wrote:

The link you give is to the Keychain Access User guide. The URL is support.apple.com/guide/keychain-access/kyca2268/mac. It is only about secure notes in Keychain access. I will reproduce the full text of the link here for your reference:

You are looking at the Sonoma guide. The URL is the same. Select Sequoia on that page's popup menu instead of Sonoma.

I'm sorry, you are simply wrong. If you go to the URL support.apple.com/guide/keychain-access/kyca2268/mac then it takes you to this page

I gave the correct URL in my response.

To anyone else reading - look at the Notes help to see how to store secure notes in Notes in future, but unfortunately there is no migration path from Keychain Access secure notes so they must be transferred manually.

Two solutions...

For storing extra info with a password; for example, the subscription key for the products associated with the login. In the new Passwords app you can edit a password entry--analogous to editing a contact. Locate the item and "edit" it. Then put info in the Notes field. https://www.idownloadblog.com/2022/04/29/how-to-add-notes-to-icloud-keychain-passwords/

For saving secure info that's not associated with a specific login. Create a Notes entry and lock it with a password. In the previous Keychain Access app you could have a password on a complete keychain. The same password protected all notes in the keychain. In Notes you could use the same password for each note in a group of secure notes. FYI, I chose to put these notes in iCloud so I could access them across my devices. To help find them I created a Notes folder for my "secure" notes.

Now to figure out how to export secure notes from Keychain Access. May be easy, just haven't looked.

Keychain is still there, you just need to find it

Spotlight Search >> Keychain

Be aware, one can no longer create New Secure Notes

Migrating Keychain Access secure notes to… - Apple Community and thanks to @MrHoffman for that information

When I open Keychain Access, it looks like all my secure notes are gone from my login keychain. But if I select the iCloud keychain then go back to my login keychain, my secure notes magically appear. It's a bug. I can edit existing notes but I can't create new notes. I'm now creating new notes in a new Accounts folder in the Notes app. They can be locked and they are stored in iCloud and so are available on my iPhone.

Owot wrote:

The link you give is to the Keychain Access User guide. The URL is support.apple.com/guide/keychain-access/kyca2268/mac. It is only about secure notes in Keychain access. I will reproduce the full text of the link here for your reference:

You are looking at the Sonoma guide. The URL is the same. Select Sequoia on that page's popup menu instead of Sonoma.

No. Keychain Access is deprecated. You can store secure notes in using the Notes app, as described here: Store confidential information securely using Notes on Mac - Apple Support

If you have any existing secure notes in Keychain Access, I recommend moving them.

You didn't even read that link. It describes how to store secure notes on Mac using Keychain Access! The very thing you are saying is deprecated and everyone else here is complaining about!

So, I just responded but that post appears to have been lost. I had a bright idea and changed my locale - they haven't updated that page for en-gb!

So, they deprecated a feature, didn't provide a migration path for critical data, and didn't even localise the help for every locale. Oh well.

I am disappointed with the deprecation of creating new Keychain iCloud Secure Notes too. Will our old secured notes still be there? If so, I found that I can just reuse old notes. That seems to work for me (That is, supplementing old notes with new information).

Hi Bruce,

same on my MacBookAir, M3, 2024 with macOS Sequoia 15.0.1 (24A348):

Keychain Access- File- ? (in previous macOS here was "New Secure Note").

Now we can edit our notes, but not to create new one (see screenshots).

How to say Apple about this bug?