Recovering Lost Passwords with Keychain Access
January 20, 2009
The Keychain Access utility in OS X is possibly one of the most helpful & most underrated applications in OS X. No one likes trying to remember passwords, much less having to type them in every time we visit a website or check our email. And thanks to Keychain Access, we don’t have to.
But what happens when you realize that you need to access that website from another computer, or someone else needs access to your wireless network but it’s been nearly a year & you have no idea what the password is anymore?
Here’s where Keychain Access comes to the rescue again. To dig up that long-forgotten password follow these four quick steps:
1. Open Keychain Access (located in /Applications/Utilities), and click Show Keychains if the keychain list is hidden.
2. Select your keychain from the list in the left-hand pane
3. Locate the entry associated with the password you need to recover & double-click it to open the Attributes pane.
4. Check the “Show Password” button & enter your password when requested.
Done!
