Using Keychain Access to generate passwords

[paieye]

I understand that KA can be configured so that, when one goes to a website and is asked to register, there will be a drop-down next to the password-field that enables one to choose KA to generate the password.

Can some kind person tell me in the simplest terms how to do this, please ?

 

[Weaselboy]

Most sites I have seen you can just click in the password field on the signup page and you will get this popup offering your a suggested password. Just click that to accept the password and it will be remembered in Keychain.

I just took this screenshot on Facebook's signup page.

The problem I have had on some pages it they have these weird password requirements that are not met by the Safari suggested password. Like in my screenshot Facebook is requiring some numbers and punctuation, and the suggested password has neither, so I suspect if I tried to use that to signup it would not work. What I have done of sites like that is add in some numbers and punctuation to the suggested password.

 

[paieye]

Thank you, but I am unable to use Safari because my sight is not as good as it once was, so I need white text on black in the menu-bar, which Safari does not provide, but Google Chrome does. I do not think that Chrome has the feature that you show in your excellent screen-shot, or am I wrong ?

 

[Weaselboy]

Thank you, but I am unable to use Safari because my sight is not as good as it once was, so I need white text on black in the menu-bar, which Safari does not provide, but Google Chrome does. I do not think that Chrome has the feature that you show in your excellent screen-shot, or am I wrong ?

Ah... I see. No what I described won't work in Chrome.

Here is a workaround though. Open Keychain app then click "New Password Item" in the File menu. You will get a window like this. Click the little key where my red arrow is and you will get the Password Assistant window at the bottom. Move the length slider over to however long you want to the password to be. Then you can just copy the suggested password from the box at the bottom and paste it into the password entry field in Chrome. Then Chrome will save the password entry into Keychain. You can then just cancel out of the Keychain window.

Kind of a hassle but it will work.

There are also websites that will generate random passwords for you. You could just open one of those in a Chrome tab (example link below) and generate a password there and copy it back to the other tab. If it were me, and I was going Chrome only, I think this is what I would do.

https://lastpass.com/generatepassword.php

 

[paieye]

Thank you - very helpful ! I have tried that, and it works perfectly well for me. I visit no more than 12 or so websites, so the fact that there is a little manoeuvring to do does not trouble me.

However, I have in the last few minutes added the Google Password Generator extension to Chrome. This seems to work in a somewhat similar way, only, instead of the suggested strong password's popping up in the password-field of the log-in page of the website, it appeared in its own window, just as it does in Keychain, and I simply dragged it across into the new-password field.

What to do you think ? Is this likely to produce the same result as does Keychain ?

 

[Weaselboy]

What to do you think ? Is this likely to produce the same result as does Keychain ?

Sure.... that would get you the same end result.

 

[paieye]

Again, many thanks, you have given me just the help that I hoped to find.