Deleted all certificates by mistake. How to recreate

certificatekeychain

I started seeing an issue in Chrome (38 on OSX 10.7.5) accessing GitHub. I got a Privacy error. One of the recommendations on SuperUser, and the reply I got from GitHub support, was to delete all expired certificates in Keychain Access, close the browser, and reboot the machine. I followed the advice.

Now, I cannot access many other sites: LinkedIn, StackExchange sites etc. – all with the same error. I'm forced to use another browser (which btw, shows an error next to the HTTPS lock icon). The Keychain Access certificates view does not repopulate. I might have deleted something I shouldn't, but shouldn't new certificates be downloaded as needed? What do I need to do to gain access to all the HTTPS sites again?

Best Answer

Restore the contents of these three directories from a recent backup:

~/Library/Keychains
/Library/Keychains
/System/Library/Keychains

On my system this comprises 18 files and a subdirectory in the user folder ~/Library/Keychains

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