Mac Administrator access to another administrator's password database

The back and forth in the thread made it hard to tell how extensively you were trying to sort this sort of thing out - apologies for mis-estimating that. Sounds like you know exactly what you need but the built-in Password app isn't it - which isn't surprising since the baseline expectation Apple has is one-person-one-computer with only limited sharing to other Apple users.

I'd look into a third party app like 1Password, or one of its competitors, that allows the creation of Family Accounts where the Account Owner can assign fine-grained permissions (like being able to access but not change passwords in shared vaults). I know third-party apps isn't necessarily your first choice, but in this case you probably get what you pay for.

Best of luck.

As a different Admin user, your husband would be able to read a passwords/keychain file that belongs to you.

However, that file is encrypted, and everything he would read from it would be complete gibberish.

To read the clear-text passwords, he would need your userid and password.

This brings into question exactly how you would like these two user-ids to work. if you are sharing all the passwords. what are you NOT sharing?

¿Would you be better served by just sharing ONE account?

The easiest thing will be to just give him your Mac user login information. That will be much simpler than trying to access your password database from another user account. Alternatively, you can use iCloud Keychain and share that with your husband:

Use iCloud Keychain to keep passwords, accounts, and more up to date with iCloud - Apple Support

Regards.

Here is how to: Share passwords or passkeys with people you trust on Mac - Apple Support

The other path — and it is far from complete solution for generic access control and sharing — involves configuring and migrating directory services, and that’s not something that most people undertake.

b) seems like a lot of needless complexity.

If he knows how to log in as you, he can use your passwords as if he were you. And as long as that is rare, they you won't mess each other up.

EAnneWard wrote:

I already use iCloud - passwords would have to be shared individually and they can be modified by the users defined in the group, something I do not want to happen.

Then I would again suggest that you just each know the other person's Mac user login information. That seems to be to be a lot less fuss (and of course less expense).

EAnneWard wrote:

My husband prefers to have his own account, and the intent is for him to be able to access my passwords in the event that I become incapacitated.

So why not just swap passwords? Then each of you have your own account, but you can access the other person's account, if necessary.

EAnneWard wrote:

There is a benefit to him having an administrator account of his own (so he can change my account password if needed)

That probably isn't what you want. While an admin account could change your login password, the account would essentially be broken at that point. It wouldn't have access to the keychain, which would still be encrypted with the old password. And said locked keychain would prevent any access to any iCloud data.

While there are certainly technical aspects to what you want - which other have already addressed quite well - those aren't the only considerations.

Banks, for example, tend to take a dim view of password sharing, even amongst spouses given home often they have to deal with collapsing marriages. Most other financial institutions and insurance companies have similar policies in their user agreements - which may also allow for the termination of services if violated (although how often those clauses are actually used is a good question).

At a minimum if you think the chances of having to access each others' passwords due to incapacitation is more than negligible, then I highly recommend appropriate General and Medical Powers of Attorney. I also recommend setting up legacy contacts between each other for major accounts that support that (Apple and Google both do at least).

Of course for banking, assuming you use the same bank, it is easy enough to have separate accounts for you individual money, a joint account for household expenses and have all the money required for the household and all bills in an account that appears in each of your online banking apps without having to share passwords (and anything in the individual accounts for personal funds wouldn't be critical enough to not be able to wait on an in-person exercise of a Power of Attorney at the bank.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, sharing passwords is OK for some things but a poor substitute for proper planning around medical or other life issues.

Don't use Proton Pass myself, although I hear decent things about it and Proton's flagship products like Proton Mail are well-regarded - so if it offers the features you need to do what you want, it's probably a good choice.