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Change the password in the keychain with the Keychain Access on macOS

Here is how to change the password on your "keychain" when it's a problem.

Change passwords for keychains

macOS uses "keychains" to save various passwords, such as servers, websites and more.

When you change the login password, you also need to change the password on your macOS keychain for everything to work smoothly. Otherwise you get a dialog box about the keychain most of the time.

To change the password on the keychain, use the program Keychain Access which can be found under /Applications/Utilities.

With this program you can see which keychains you have, what they contain and change the password on them.

Start the program, and you will see a list of keychains and their status (locked or unlocked). If you do not see any keychains, you can click "New window" in the File menu. Then a list of one or more keychains will appear.

To change the password on a keychain, follow these steps:

  1. Select the keychain that has either your username or "login" as the name. It probably has an open padlock next to it.
  2. Go to the Edit menu and click on Change password on keychain....
  3. First enter your old password in "Current password:" to be able to change to the new password.
  4. Then fill in and the remaining fields with your new password (same as your login password).