Managing Saved Passwords

Many places you need to enter a password give you the option of saving it “to your keychain,” freeing you from the need to remember or enter passwords over and over. What happens to your passwords, though? What if you need to remember one, or delete one? You can find all the answers in the Keychain Access application buried with the other Utilities.

Navigate to Applications→Utilities→Keychain Access. This application will allow you to view and delete saved passwords (you’ll be able to see the account information when you open Keychain Access - I’ve blocked it out here since this is a naturally sensitive topic!).

Here, you can browse through the various passwords and web certificates saved to your keychain. If you want to delete a password, simply highlight the item you wish to delete the password for and press “Delete.”

You may wish to double check that you’ve selected the correct item, or you might just want to see what the password actually is. To do this, you can double click the item instead. An information window pops up, telling you the website (or application) the password belongs to, the account name, etc.

You’ll notice that the password field is blank in this window. If you click the “show password” check box next to this field, the system will ask you for the main login password for the account you’ve signed into the computer with (this password can just be blank). After you’ve entered the password, the one you’re attempting to look up in Keychain Access will appear.

Should you need to change any of this information, you can do so here and click “Save Changes.” If you happen to change something by mistake and don’t want to save it, just close the window and choose not to save the changes.