Password Keychain

[jason.siegel]

I've been using 1Password for quite some time and have been attempting to move to Password Keychain. However, I can't get it to work all that well. For instance, it suggests a random password to me when I change my Macrumors password. Then when I try to log in, my password does not autofill. When I search for a macrumors password in Safari preferences, it isn't even there! What did I miss?

Also, sometimes on other websites, my login info does not save. I'm never even prompted to save it.

 

[smithrh]

See the thread on this page for the workaround for MacRumors. I'm too lazy to type it out again or link it.

 

[jason.siegel]

So—is this a bug in Keychain that will be fixed?
Or is it really Apple's intention to have this half-baked system?
And what happens when I want to retrieve a password manually, for instance to log into Mail? I need to open Safari, and then go to Preferences > Password > Show passwords > [enter password] > Find website ? That seems kind of ridiculous.

 

[LV426]

So—is this a bug in Keychain that will be fixed?
Or is it really Apple's intention to have this half-baked system?
And what happens when I want to retrieve a password manually, for instance to log into Mail? I need to open Safari, and then go to Preferences > Password > Show passwords > [enter password] > Find website ? That seems kind of ridiculous.

keychain in Safari does the best that it can with the HTML it is given. If the website concerned (e.g. this one) does weird stuff, keychain won't work as expected. There are plenty of websites that have login forms and password change features that work perfectly well with Safari/keychain.

 

[jason.siegel]

Is there no way to manage passwords besides through Safari > Preferences?

 

[LV426]

Is there no way to manage passwords besides through Safari > Preferences?

There would be no point.

The idea is that Safari detects input password fields and password change fields on web pages. If it can do that successfully, it will fill in the missing info when you visit a site and update passwords in keychain when you create or change them.

If Safari cannot do this - and some websites do make this virtually impossible because of the way they are designed - there would be little point in you managing the keychain password.

You might want to consider a 3rd party application for remembering your important stuff, like 1Password or eWallet.

 

[jason.siegel]

I don't see why there would be no point. If I use the password generator for Google and then need to use that password for Mail or Adium, it takes like 10 steps to get it. There's no point in making this easier?

 

[LV426]

I don't see why there would be no point. If I use the password generator for Google and then need to use that password for Mail or Adium, it takes like 10 steps to get it. There's no point in making this easier?

That's not true. And what you are proposing is not password management at all.

If you want to find out what a stored password is in Safari, click Preferences, Passwords, Show Passwords for selected websites. Enter your device passcode (since it won't let any old Tom, Dick or Harry lookat your passwords).

 

[Weaselboy]

Is there no way to manage passwords besides through Safari > Preferences?

Yes. Just launch Keychain app from /Applications/Utilities and you will see the same list of passwords from Safari shown in the Keychain app. You will will also see passwords you saved for other things like Mail app and wifi logins.

That Safari page you are seeing is just a Safari interface to the real password that is saved in Keychain.

 

[am2am]

... There are plenty of websites that have login forms and password change features that work perfectly well with Safari/keychain.

can you name one? I've been trying unsuccessfully with many pages - always same behavior: safari proposes password, but then does not remembers it (during password change process - it's working fine with new accounts creation).

This is not limited to macrumors site only - same discussion here:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1670683/

 

[jason.siegel]

Yes, I've been having that problem too. I have an old version of 1Password, which has been great, but new versions are extremely expensive.

 

[LV426]

can you name one? I've been trying unsuccessfully with many pages - always same behavior: safari proposes password, but then does not remembers it (during password change process - it's working fine with new accounts creation).

This is not limited to macrumors site only - same discussion here:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1670683/

bbc.co.uk
imdb.com
www.theguardian.com/uk
hotels.com

...

I imagine that as sites migrate towards the kind of standards that you find with HTML 5 (e.g. input pattern attributes) keychain will be far more likely to get it right every time.

 

[am2am]

Thanks
I have tested imdb.com and indeed its working correctly during password change.
So we may only hope most webservices will standardize their password process soon.
I am just wondering how 1Password resolved this

 

[LV426]

Thanks
I have tested imdb.com and indeed its working correctly during password change.
So we may only hope most webservices will standardize their password process soon.
I am just wondering how 1Password resolved this

I don't have 1Password myself, so I can only guess. But I wouldn't be surprised if it kept detailed records of form layouts and the fields that they contain. As opposed to Safari / keychain, which records only the site, user name and password, and expects websites to be well designed. It's not an unreasonable proposition.

eWallet, for example, has an editor that allows you to specifically change its recorded fields and what those fields mean.