MacOS – How to migrate the Keychain’s “Local Items” to a new Mac

keychainmacosmigration-assistant

After preforming a Mavericks-Mavericks migration using Migration Assistant, I have a "Local Items" Keychain on my new machine in which many (perhaps most) items are out of date (using old passwords), and some are missing altogether. While I have access to a copy of the entire contents of the ~/Library/Keychains/ directory from my old machine, which presumably contains all the information I'm missing, I see no way of importing that information into my new machine.

How can I import the "Local Items" from my old Keychain into the Keychain on my new machine?

Best Answer

I just managed to get my keys to my new mac (this only works if you still have access to the old Mac and can boot it up):

  • (on the old mac) Remove your current user's password
  • Create a new keychain (without a password)
  • Copy all keys in "Local Items" to your new keychain
  • Copy the keychain to the new mac
  • (on the new mac) Remove your current user's password
  • Add the new keychain file
  • Copy all keys in the new keychain to "Local Items"
  • Delete the new keychain
  • Don't forget to set a password again after that

It's a bit annoying as you have to click "Allow" for EACH item in the keychain but well, it's the only thing I found that works.

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