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As can be seen in the screenshot I have selected a bunch of keychain items. So why is Export items disabled?

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WestCoastProjects
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3 Answers3

6

You can only export one key at a time, or one key and a matching certificate. It will be encrypted upon export and can only contain one key.

If you need to move an entire keychain to a different computer, look at ~/Library/Keychains - example login.keychain (in finder, cmd + shift + g, paste path, go)

It can be added to another machine and you can change the password of the keychain.

Niklas
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  • That's a v interesting idea about copying the keychain. I did that and it did not help. Do you have any more details.? – WestCoastProjects Jul 14 '16 at 14:23
  • What do you want to achieve? – Niklas Jul 15 '16 at 06:45
  • Should be clear enough - read in the entries from the keychain. – WestCoastProjects Jul 15 '16 at 06:49
  • Not clear enough for me though. What problems did you have by moving the keychain, it usually works just fine moving it to a different machine and/or user. Could you view all the items in the new machine/user keychain? – Niklas Jul 15 '16 at 07:00
  • re: clarity: fair enough. There was no effect when replacing the login.keychain from the second machine onto the first. The first did not show the entries contained in the overwritten file. – WestCoastProjects Jul 15 '16 at 14:09
  • But if you just doubleclick the login.kechain that are copied you should be able to browse the content. Since you can store several keychain files on usb memories and other location than the original login placement. Replacing it require more things, first you cant replace a keychain if icloud keychain sync is active, secondly you cant be logged in as the same user as you replace the keychain for. Thirdly check the file permissions. – Niklas Jul 16 '16 at 13:07
  • I have restarted a new keychain due to these issues and am not in a position to verify your latest suggestions. I'm going to award in any case. – WestCoastProjects Jul 16 '16 at 19:14
3

It seems that only certificates can be ex-/imported, but not passwords.

You could copy and rename your keychain though, as described in apple support document. Then open "Keychain Access" and you will see your renamed keychain in there. Now you can copy/paste whatever item you want from one keychain to another (e.g. to your login keychain). Once you

Oliver
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2

If you're planning to migrate keychains across machines, you could also use iCloud sync to get the keychain items on the other device/machine.

System Preferences - > iCloud -> Keychain

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Pranav 웃
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