Keychain not remembering Mail and other passwords

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Level 1

10 points

Keychain not remembering Mail and other passwords

Help! I somehow screwed up my keychain so that no matter what I do, Mail does not remember any of my passwords. Every time I quit Mail and come back to it, it requires me to re-enter passwords. I'm afraid that I don't know exactly what I did in keychain that caused the problem. Keychain repair did not fix the problem.

I am running Lion on a new iMac. The problem developed recently on my older Core Duo 2 iMac, and I had hoped it would go away when I migrated to my very recently purchased new machine, but the problem migrated along with all the other data. How do I fix the access problem? Re-load the operating system? Delete keychain files somehow and start again? I would appreciate any help I can get.

Posted on Sep 3, 2011 6:01 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Carolyn Samit

Level 10

165,615 points

Sep 3, 2011 6:26 AM in response to wjackman

Go to ~ /Library/Preferences.

Move the com.apple.keychainaccess.plist file from the Preferences folder to the Trash.

Restart your Mac.

If that didn't help, open Keychain Access. Select Passwords on the left.

Delete your Mail keychain and any other keychains (for passwords) you have problems with.

Open the Mail app. Go to the Mail menu bar click Mail / Preferences. Select the Accounts tab then select Account Information.

Type in the password. You should be prompted to save that data to a new keychain. Click Yes when prompted.

~ (Tilde) represents the Home folder.

For LIon: To find the Home folder in OS X Lion, open the Finder, hold the Option key, and choose Go > Library

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Answer 2

wjackman Author

Level 1

10 points

Sep 3, 2011 6:59 AM in response to Carolyn Samit

Thanks for your prompt and thoughtful answer. Two problems prevent them from working however.

1. I do not see a plist in the place recommended. That is, there is nothing between com.apple.keyboardtype.plist and com.apple.loginitems.plist, which is where the keychain plist should fall. Maybe that is part of the problem?

2. I have tried deleting the mail passwords in Keychain Access, but that doesn't seem to help. In Mail accounts, I enter the password, but it doesn't "stick", i.e., it isn't remembered once I quit mail and restart it.

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Answer 3

Sep 22, 2011 1:15 PM in response to wjackman

I'm having the same problem...is this a result from the recent security update?

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