Macintosh: Changing Keychain Login to New Network Password

Posted by: rrichar2 on August 31, 2011Tags: macintosh, password, security

Annual network password change can necessitate changing your keychain login password in order to unlock the file on a macintosh that stores all saved passwords and certificates.  If the two passwords do not match, the computer will give an error message indicating that a saved password cannot be accessed.

A. To locate and change the keychain login password:

1. Open the Applications folder from the harddrive (A)
2. Open the Utilities folder, then Keychain Access (B)
   
3. Next open your home folder
4. Followed by Library > Keychain
5. Expand Keychain to see login.keychain. Opening the file will display all passwords and certificates stored there.

NOTE: If you never save passwords (login.keychain file is empty), simply delete this file after changing your network password. It will be recreated the next time you login, and will synch automatically with the new password.

B. To manually change the login keychain password:

1. Open Keychain Access from Applications Folder
2. Under Edit, choose Change password for Keychain Login
3. Enter old password (A)
4. Enter new network password (B)
5. Confirm new password (C)
6. Click ok (D)