MacOS – How to prevent Safari saved passwords being seen with Mac password

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In Safari on OS X via Safari/Preferences/Passwords/ it is possible to view all saved passwords in plain text by entering the Mac password.

I want to use a different password. Is this possible?

I know that it is possible to change the password used to access the Keychain app via this method: Mac OS X, passwd, and keychain, however it does not change the behaviour in Safari as mentioned above. My ideal situation is for Keychain to manage all my passwords across all my devices and autofill them, without revealing them in plain text to someone who knows my device passwords.

RELATED: How to prevent keychain passwords being seen with iPhone passcode? the same problem on iOS.

Best Answer

If you want to avoid the default behaviour, which is a reasonable setting for a computer that allows multiple accounts, including guest accounts, you can do the following in Keychain Access:

  1. Change the Keychain password
  2. For each really sensitive item you have in there:
    1. Select a relevant item in Keychain Access
    2. Get information on the item with the Get Info menu
    3. Select the Access Control tab
    4. Mark the Ask for Keychain password checkbox

That should allow for the most sensitive passwords (or all of them, if you apply it to all of them) to require your password to be provided every time they are about to be used, and hence won't show in Safari's saved passwords unless that Keychain password is provided.

Another option is creating a new keychain, different from the login keychain, with a different passwords, and move the items from the login keychain. The system can find the needed items in that keychain, and you will need to provide that different password instead.

Of course, another option is using 1password.

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