Deleting Keychain on Mojave

[Benz63amg]

I’m giving my Mac to my brother and I don’t want to reinstall the operation system completely, I’ve manually uninstalled and reset all settings and applications, the only thing that is left is under the “Keychain” application under Utilities, I see a whole bunch of certificates etc, Is it ok to delete everything that is in the Keychain? There are items in system, system roots, local items, keys, certificates. Should I delete all the items in all these locations? I don’t want to mistakenly delete the password to the actual user account that I’m using which will then lock me out of the account(is that not even possible?)

 

[chrfr]

I’m giving my Mac to my brother and I don’t want to reinstall the operation system completely, I’ve manually uninstalled and reset all settings and applications, the only thing that is left is under the “Keychain” application under Utilities, I see a whole bunch of certificates etc, Is it ok to delete everything that is in the Keychain? There are items in system, system roots, local items, keys, certificates. Should I delete all the items in all these locations? I don’t want to mistakenly delete the password to the actual user account that I’m using which will then lock me out of the account(is that not even possible?)

Make a new account for your brother, delete yours. Manually deleting things in your keychain will cause problems.

 

[Benz63amg]

Make a new account for your brother, delete yours.

You mean make a new Admin account and delete my personal admin account? I didn’t even think about that. So it’s not safe to delete ALL content in the Keychain as some might cause issues with the operating system and its just better to create a new admin account?

 

[chrfr]

You mean make a new Admin account and delete my personal admin account? I didn’t even think about that. So it’s not safe to delete ALL content in the Keychain as some might cause issues with the operating system?

Correct. It's not actually possible to delete everything you see in all the Keychains but there's no reason to keep your account on the computer. (or just leave your account there and make your brother an account.)

 

[Benz63amg]

Correct. It's not actually possible to delete everything you see in all the Keychains but there's no reason to keep your account on the computer. (or just leave your account there and make your brother an account.)

When I delete my old Admin account, will the new Admin account then before the Primary account that controls the computer? I’m assuming everything on it will be fresh as if I did a fresh OS installation as well?

 

[chrfr]

When I delete my old Admin account, will the new Admin account then before the Primary account that controls the computer? I’m assuming everything on it will be fresh as if I did a fresh OS installation as well?

There is no "primary account." You have admin accounts and standard accounts, and no admin account has any different levels of privileges than another. Making a new account will not do anything to clean out any systemwide settings but anything customized by a given user would not apply to the other account.

 

[Benz63amg]

There is no "primary account." You have admin accounts and standard accounts, and no admin account has any different levels of privileges than another. Making a new account will not do anything to clean out any systemwide settings but anything customized by a given user would not apply to the other account.

But the Keychain would be fully new and clear on the NEW admin account, correct?

 

[chrfr]

But the Keychain would be fully new and clear on the NEW admin account, correct?

Keychains, with the exception of the system keychains, which are pre-populated with things the computer needs to run and which do not contain user-specific data, are private and specific to each account.

 

[Benz63amg]

Keychains, with the exception of the system keychains, which are pre-populated with things the computer needs to run and which do not contain user-specific data, are private and specific to each account.

So all in all you just recommend creating new admin account and removing old admin account to skip messing around with the Keychain stuff altogether and make it an easy process?

 

[Weaselboy]

So all in all you just recommend creating new admin account and removing old admin account to skip messing around with the Keychain stuff altogether and make it an easy process?

That is exactly what I would do also.

 

[chrfr]

So all in all you just recommend creating new admin account and removing old admin account to skip messing around with the Keychain stuff altogether and make it an easy process?

Yes, that's what I said in my very first reply.