How Do I Reset Keychain and Get Rid of All the Password Popups?

Question

Level 2

342 points

How Do I Reset Keychain and Get Rid of All the Password Popups?

I was away four a few weeks and just before doing so I had reset my user password? When I returned I couldn't remember it, so I had to reset it in recovery mode. After doing this and booting up I'm getting oodles of prompts to enter my Keychain Login which I do not know, so I do reset which doesn't take. Mail also asks for all my mail accounts passwords which I enter and do not take either.

How can I clear all the Keychain info and start from scratch before I pull all my hair out?

Lastly, I do not backup Keychain to iCloud.

OS 10.9.4

Mac Pro, OS X Mavericks (10.9.1), 2010 12-Core 24GB 5870 600GB Raptor

Posted on Aug 12, 2014 12:08 PM

Reply

Answer 1

John Galt

Level 10

140,976 points

Aug 12, 2014 12:12 PM in response to Tony Giordano

OS X: Keychain Access asks for keychain "login" after changing login password

The effect of deleting the existing Keychain is that you will need to supply credentials for the services requiring them. You only have to do that once. If you no longer have the old password the existing Keychain is useless anyway, so you might as well delete it.

Reply

Answer 2

Tony Giordano Author

Level 2

342 points

Aug 12, 2014 12:30 PM in response to John Galt

Thanks John. What's the correct way of doing so?

Reply

Answer 3

Aug 12, 2014 12:51 PM in response to Tony Giordano

KeyChain Preferences.

Reset Keychain

Reply

Answer 4

Tony Giordano Author

Level 2

342 points

Aug 12, 2014 1:35 PM in response to RáNdÓm GéÉzÁ

Did that, does absolutely nothing.

Reply

Answer 5

John Galt

Level 10

140,976 points

Aug 12, 2014 2:15 PM in response to Tony Giordano

Mac OS X 10.6: Deleting a keychain

The article is outdated but the procedure remains unchanged.

Reply

Answer 6

Aug 12, 2014 2:48 PM in response to Tony Giordano

You could try going into ~/Library and pulling the whole keychain folder.

Reply

Answer 7

Tony Giordano Author

Level 2

342 points

Aug 12, 2014 4:30 PM in response to Obsidaisi

Thanks Obsidaisi, that seems to have done the trick. I'll know for sure in the next 24 hours, but so far no nagging password popups.

Reply

Answer 8

Aug 27, 2014 8:48 AM in response to Tony Giordano

I talked to Apple Technical Support last night about it. What caused mine to start popping up was that I changed my settings and created a login password for my computer. It must not have been the same password as my keychain password so keychain password popups started. Technical support had me reset keychain with the login required for my computer and now I don't have popups anymore.

If you have AppleCare on your computer that is current, you can call technical support with any issues and they'll gladly walk you through your Mac troubles.

Reply

Answer 9

Nov 10, 2015 11:20 PM in response to newcreature101

Even so it is still confusing I Have used apple support for this before, but would end up needing them everyday, I DO NOT remember passwords, I shouldn't have to...with all the technology, I'll just have to have GOOGLE remember my passwords for me less hassle.

Reply

Answer 10

Dec 15, 2015 9:58 AM in response to newcreature101

Thanks, I wanted to say that I took your advice, had applecare for MBP and they kindly helped me with disassociate three devices. However lol, about two weeks later I couldn't stand all the continued prompts for password inputs that I went ahead and re-instated Keychain but this time chose to learn about it 😝😊

Reply

Answer 11

Dec 17, 2015 11:38 AM in response to taniafromhaiku

This is the only way... that I have found that works.

Depress the ctrl key once do that you are seeing :

Finder - File - Edit – View – Go – Window – Help

Navigate to Go whilst depressing alt which then shows the file: Library

Which then shows a Keychains folder in the stack.

Drag that folder onto the desktop and reboot.

This then creates a new virgin Keychains folder which should resolve your problems.

Reply