thousands of files in /Library/Keychains

See if the Disk is issuing any S.M.A.R.T errors in Disk Utility...

http://support.apple.com/kb/PH7029

I've never tried removing the whole folder, yet it can be done.

In 10.4.11, I only have 2 files in my /Library/Keychains folder...

.fixed

System.keychain

But 4 in /System/Library/Keychains/

And 4 in /Users/MyUserName/Library/Keychains/

Be very careful with these commands, but in Terminal do...

man rm

And...

man rmdir

Likely you'll need to use sudo with it.

In 10.4.11, I have 2, 399,653 files, & won't be on 10.6/10.7/10.8 for about 12 more hours, but as I recall the higher OS versions had way more files.

Will the folder be recreated when I use the keyring again or do I need to do it manually to make the keyring function working again.

I'm not sure what effects not having done it, but I suspect it'll be recreated, if not, reapplying the OS Install should do it.

Is this the keychain folder in your home library?

I was wrong, 10.7.5 reports 1,035,172 files.

So something seems messed up on yours.

WE be confused together! 😉

To remove everything in a directory without removing the directory, type in:

rm -rfv dontDeleteMe/*

Please note, the

/*

part is very important. If you put a space before the

*

, it will delete all your files in your current directory.

Also, be very careful playing with

rm

,

-r

and

*

all in the same command. They can be a disastrous combination.

http://askubuntu.com/questions/72446/how-to-remove-all-files-and-subdirectories- in-a-directory-without-deleting-the-d

find Library/Keychains -type f -name *_* -delete

That won't work.

First, do not make up shell commands on your own.

You need to fix the permissions of your home folder.

Back up all data now.

This procedure will unlock all your user files (not system files) and reset their ownership and access-control lists to the default. If you've set special values for those attributes on any of your files, they will be reverted. In that case, either stop here, or be prepared to recreate the settings if necessary. If none of this is meaningful to you, you don't need to worry about it.

Step 1

Launch the Terminal application in any of the following ways:

☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)

☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.

☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the icon grid.

Drag or copy — do not type — the following line into the Terminal window, then press return:

sudo chflags -R nouchg,nouappnd ~ $TMPDIR.. ; sudo chown -R $UID:20 ~ $_ ; chmod -R -N ~ $_ 2> /dev/null

Be sure to select the whole line by triple-clicking anywhere in it. You'll be prompted for your login password, which won't be displayed when you type it. You may get a one-time warning not to screw up. You don't need to post the warning. If you don’t have a login password, you’ll need to set one before you can run the command.

The command will take a noticeable amount of time to run. Wait for a new line ending in a dollar sign (“$”) to appear, then quit Terminal.

Step 2

Boot into Recovery by holding down the key combination command-R at startup. Release the keys when you see a gray screen with a spinning dial.

When the OS X Utilities screen appears, select Utilities ▹ Terminal from the menu bar. A text window opens.

In the Terminal window, type this:

resetpassword

That's one word with no spaces. Then press return. A Reset Password window opens. You’re not going to reset a password.

Select your boot volume ("Macintosh HD," unless you gave it a different name) if not already selected.

Select your username from the menu labeled Select the user account if not already selected.

Under Reset Home Directory Permissions and ACLs, click the Reset button.

Select  ▹ Restart from the menu bar.

Then run the shell command I posted earlier by dragging or copying it, not by typing. It needs to be modified in the light of the information you posted afterwards:

find Library/Keychains -type f -name *.sb-* -delete

Thanks Linc. 🙂