How to stop Safari saving passwords?

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Level 1

16 points

How to stop Safari saving passwords?

I use a 3rd party app to manage my passwords, so I don't want them to be saved in the Safari preferences.

In Safari - Preferences - Autofill I have disabled "Usernames and Passwords", but even if Safari doesn't autofill forms it still saves my passwords. In Safari - Preferences - Passwords I still have a list of my passwords, which have been recorder AFTER I disabled usernames and passwords autofill and erased the password list.

Is there something I did wrong? I simply don't want to have a list of passwords in the Safari preferences encrypted with my Mac password.

MacBook Pro (15-inch Late 2008), OS X Mavericks (10.9), 2.4 GHz, 8 GB RAM

Posted on May 29, 2014 12:32 PM

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Answer 1

May 29, 2014 12:45 PM in response to Shony

You need to remove the keychains associated with the list in SafarI > Prefererences > Passwords

Open Keychiain Access located in /Applications/Utilities

Select Passwords on the left.

Type the name of a website that you do not want Safari to store the password for then right or control click that keychain then click Delete.

Ditto for other sites you do not want Safari to store a password for.

Just so you are aware, third party password managers often cause more problems than they are worth. A good example is 1Password as noted from the results of an ASC search here.

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Answer 2

Shony Author

Level 1

16 points

May 29, 2014 3:20 PM in response to Carolyn Samit

I agree with you that it would obviously be preferable an official option made by Apple to manage multiple passwords.

However I don't think Keychain could be really used as a password manager, because, if I'm correct, storing passwords from Safari via iCloud will let me access then flawlessly on my iPhone when I'm on the go, but if my iPhone gets stolen the thief could read non-encrypted passwords from Settings - Safari - Saved passwords.

The point is that I don't want to input a code to unlock my phone every time I want to use it. So I don't want to keep unencrypted confidential data on my device, as it seems to be the case with Safari passwords.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, as I said I would like to use Keychain if it fits my needs.

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Answer 3

Shony Author

Level 1

16 points

Jun 5, 2014 2:26 PM in response to Carolyn Samit

It's strange, I deleted all passwords from Safari and from Keychain, Safari - Preferences - Autofill - Usernames and passwords is unflagged, Safari - Preferences - Passwords - Autofill usernames and passwords is unflagged, but after a couple of days I have again a full list of my passwords in Safari preferences.

Why? How can I stop Safari saving my passwords?

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Answer 4

Shony Author

Level 1

16 points

Jun 19, 2014 11:58 PM in response to dianeoforegon

the problem is not about new passwords being saved.

a set of previously saved passwords keeps coming back in Keychain, and then in Safari, passwords of websites which I no longer visit.

I even tried to reset iCloud Keychain, via the "forgot code" link in System Preferences - iCloud, but even with this procedure my old set of passwords appeared again in Safari after a day or so..

I have no clue of why this is happening, any help is appreciated

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Answer 5

Dec 16, 2014 1:44 PM in response to Shony

@Shony, I have the exact same issue. I have been working on this for about a year with no resolution. I am currently working with Apple Support for 2 months to find out where these passwords are coming from.

Here is my scenario and my suspicion:

over a year ago I enabled iCloud Keychain. I have 2 Mac Book pro so it was beneficial.

I then decided to not use iCloud Keychain for security reasons. I did not want my passwords anywhere other than on my Mac. So I followed the steps and disabled iCloud Keychain.

I then bought a new mac and added it to iCloud but only checked Safari and Find My Mac. After a few days Safari had all my passwords. What the ****?

Anyway, I have since then removed my keychain at least 5 times and after a few days every password I had comes back. One thing that makes me think these passwords are coming from iCloud Keychain is that many of these passwords are old and I have since updated them. But when Safari gets all the passwords they are all the old ones. I suspect that there is an issue with iCloud Keychain not really getting rid of all the passwords and somehow they get synced back. How else would Apple explain that today at 12:23pm all my passwords came back (List is 100 or so passwords). There is a Modified Date in Keychain that will show that.

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