Soon I will be upgrading to MacOS Sierra from OS X Yosemite, I was never able to recover my keychain when I migrated to the new Macbook Pro last year. Since I have built up all new passwords, this would be highly annoying if it happened again but once again I'm not using ICloud. Besides a Time Machine backup which did not help me the first time, is there anything else I can do before I upgrade to ensure this does not happen again?
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Data Migration Local Keychain Passwords Not Appearing.
- Thread starter MacGekko
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http://www.macworld.com/article/2013756/how-to-manage-passwords-with-keychain-access.html
Just copy your login.keychain off to a USB key or something.
Through more research it seems you can't copy the local portion of the keychain as it is encrypted. I have no confidence in Keychain when I migrate from Yosemite to High Sierra.
1. Can I use Icloud only for my Keychain, no other services?
2. Once the OS is upgraded to High Sierra, can I then remove the keychain fully from Icloud?
I don't want to use any Cloud services but this time around I can't lose the keychain. Thanks for your time and if I already asked this question in another thread, my apologies, I wish I had never used this local keychain folder.
1. Sure... just go into the iCloud settings and turn on Keychain and turn off everything else.
2. Yes, you can just turn off Keychain.
2. Yes, you can just turn off Keychain.
Thanks and once turned off does your keychain file get deleted from the Icloud servers?
It has been a while since I did it, but as I recall there was an option that popped up asking that yes.
https://github.com/lifepillar/CSVKeychain
If you read the above link, this section:
Is it possible to export the Local Items (aka iCloud) keychain?
I am in the process of copying all of the passwords from my local keychain folder to the new one, let's call it "Sierra Keychain"
Even if somehow my local folder disappears as it did when I updated from Mavericks to Yosemite when I update from Yosemite to High Sierra, will this new keychain folder I created called "Sierra Keychain" definitely be there?
Also is there a way to have Safari add new website passwords to the "Sierra Keychain" folder and stop adding them to the Local Keychain folder?
Update: It is a slow process as I have to enter my keychain password for each item but it is transferring but when I try to do the same for Secure Notes it is unable to paste it, might have to manually open each note and copy/paste those into the login secure notes folder from the local secure notes folder, unless someone knows of another way, either way if WB or another poster can answer my questions above, it would be greatly appreciated.
Update II: OK, one possible way is changing the default keychain from the login keychain to my newly created "Sierra Keychain", the problem with that is since my "Local" folder keychain is currently not the default, for some reason Safari automatically adds website passwords to the Local folder and not the Login folder.
Any ideas?
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There has to be somebody here who has figured out how to use Keychain without Icloud and be able to migrate to a new computer and update to a new OS.
Please, someone, this is the only thing preventing me from upgrading to High Sierra from Yosemite.
Update: After upgrading from Yosemite to High Sierra, the local items and login keychain was once again deleted and reset. All of my copied passwords and secure notes in the "Sierra" section were retained.
Safari allows me to use the "Sierra" section if I first click always allow when first visiting each website, however if I change a password, new password gets saved in local items, then I must copy it into the "Sierra" section.
Same thing if I create a completely new username/password at a new website. The local items section can't be deleted permanently.
The only workaround is to keep your new section manually updated until you can find a third party keychain because if you don't use Icloud, your local items section and perhaps your login section will be deleted and reset when you either upgrade the OS or migrate to a new Macbook.
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