can't remember keychain password

Nope. Color it gone. You'll have to recreate the login.keychain and then remember it's password. By default it matches the user's password unless you change it via the Keychain Access utility.

The keychain is designed to be truly secure. You can't do a password reset, like you can on an administrative account. It is a good thing. It means that you can safely store your most sensitive information, passwords and such, and be reasonably assured that it is safe from thieves who are savvy enough to reset your account password.

It is somewhat important that your keychain password be unique, and not be the same as your admin password. We don't realize the importance of such until we let someone know our admin password to use the system, thereby opening the "whole vault", if the keychain password matches the Admin.

SP Forsythe wrote:

We don't realize the importance of such until we let someone know our admin password to use the system, thereby opening the "whole vault", if the keychain password matches the Admin.

BTW, why would anyone reveal their admin password? IIRC, each user, whether or not an admin, can use or reset their login.keychain password. I've not played with a nonadmin user account in years, so my memory might be faulty.

BTW, why would anyone reveal their admin password?

There are some situations. Not that I agree with them in any manner.

I'm guessing you may not be married.

My wife would go ape if she didn't have my admin password. She doesn't know that it's essentially worthless without my keychain password though.😉

My life partner and I share two computers and both have our own accounts. We've made arrangements to reveal all in case one of us expires. FWIW, I can't do anything about your wife's condition or reaction. 😁