Old Macs still present in iCloud Keychain

I'm facing the same issue after reinstalling Mavericks then restoring from Time Machine, posted it few minutes ago here: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5512573

There are a few posts about this. I had the same after testing install multiple times using virtual machines.

Its not even per machine, but per account. There's also a securoty issue if you loose a device using keychain.

Anyway, if Apple doesn't provide a way to selectively cut off keychained accounts, or reset them all as it is done for iTunes authorization, it's impossible to clean up the mess.

Me too. I forgot to de-authorise my two Macs before clean reinstalling Mavericks on them and now they each show up twice in iCloud keychain dialogues. I'd like to eliminate the duplicates but it seems you cant at the moment.

It isn't a major problem right now but without a way to manage device authorisations I can see it becoming an unholy mess in the future - and it makes me nervous that I can't selectively de-authorise devices if I need to. I'd settle for the option to nuke the whole thing and start over, but I'm not sure you can do that either!

I'm wondering about deliberately getting my icloud password wrong multiple times to force apple to 'delete it from the cloud' - but I'm not sure of that would just 'empty' the keychain or also remove the authorisations associated with it. Anyone tried it?

I'm starting to wish I hadn't dabbled with this stuff particularly now I realise that iC keychain has no master password.

I got a new mac and used the Migration Assistant to move data over. Long story short there was a problem and I had to return the Mac. I made sure the mac was not activated through iTunes and I think I turned off the Keychain but I'm not positive. I did however, delete the entire user account.

So I have two concerns.

1. When I work on some of the Internet accounts I get a message, "Removing from all computers using iCloud Keychain will remove it from this Mac and "My Mac (2)". This is annoying and I can't figure out how to remove it as described above.
2. I believe that because there should be nothing left of the account on the other machine no one should be able to do much harm but this doesn't make me feel great.

It seems that if you can, the answer is to go to System Preferences > Internet Accounts > iCloud and deselect Keychain. Then changes in the Keychain will no longer be sync'd with this machine. This situation isn't that uncommon. Machines can be stolen and hardware failures can prevent a machine from being deactivated. This seems like a very basic element of a centralized keychain: you want to be able to unauthorize/remove machines just like iCloud lets you remove machines that you no longer own. In fact, it seems very odd that removing a machine from iCloud doesn't automatically remove the keychain.

This threat is now pretty old and there's not been much in the way of answers which is a bit disconcerting.

I have done some Googling without luck. Maybe I'll check with a Genius and see if there's any answer there but I suspect they won't know something this detailed.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Hi, I think I found a way. There's Apple's KB about it, iCloud: Frequently asked questions about iCloud Keychain - the last one.

Unfortunately there's no way to remove one computer from the iCloud Keychain, but you can rebuild it.

Go to System Preferences > iCloud > Account Details, and deselect "Allow approving using security code". Then deselect Keychain and keep it on your Mac. Then, when re-enabling it, choose to reset iCloud keychain, and create a new security code.

You will get messages on your devices such as "This iPhone is no longer participating in iCloud Keychain because it was reset by another device", but it's a few clicks or taps to bring them back.

You can then test the sync by eg adding a credit card in Safari > Preferences > Autofill > Credit Cards, and see if it was added in iOS > Settings > Safari > Passwords & AutoFill > Saved Credit Cards.

This kept me up all night, but I think I found a solution. Hopefully it's real. It made all the old phantom computer names go away, anyway:

Log in to iCloud Keychain from a different installation and reset it (as per the iCloud FAQ) from there.

I have a USB 3 drive with its own bootable system. After doing the reset thing from my main Mac and my iPhone with no success removing the phantom machines, I decided to try booting from this external USB. I logged into iCloud there, turned on Keychain, reset it, then turned it off again and shut down.

On rebooting back on my Mac's SSD, I turned on Keychain, and then tried deleting an internet account. The ghost computers were gone; this was the only machine. Hopefully it's for real.

Hi everyone!

I'm experiencing the same issue on my new Macbook Air... When I want to delete an account like Twitter or Facebook in Preferences/iCloud, the system say that the modifications will apply on my MB Air and my old MB Pro (that I don't have any more)...

I have tried to remove the keychain and to rebuilt it doesn't change : the old/ghost mac reappear in the message every time

I'm going to create a bootable USB to follow the solution of Jmar Gambol and I hope that it will work.

Anyone got a response for this issue just in case of the last one don't work ?

Thanks you very much.

Having this problem again lately with Yosemite and nothing (including my external USB "fix" above) seemed to work.

I finally tried making a new Apple ID and logging in with that. Well, the ghost Macs were still there! On a completely separate iCloud Keychain!

I remembered a bug earlier after Yosemite debuted when for some reason a Mac's network name would start being duplicated. Like, "My iMac" would by itself become "My iMac (2)", "My iMac (3)".

It was fixed by Apple at one update or another, but before that, someone suggested turning off the firewall in Security & Privacy.

So I did that. I always had my Security & Privacy firewall on. I turned it off, logged out of iCloud Keychain and iCloud, rebooted, logged in again (on the fresh ID). Did the add-delete Internet Accounts thing where we would all see the phantom Mac names.

Phantom Macs gone.

I logged out of iCloud Keychain again, logged out of iCloud again, rebooted again, logged into this Apple ID. No persistent accounts returned. Promising. Added and deleted an Internet account. Phantom Macs gone.

I wonder if my earlier "fix" on the external drive had something to do with that boot's firewall also being off. What are your firewall settings?