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Vain RoweRestore the old keychain after resetting the keychain to default. I "reset my default keychain" within keychain access after being told that this was the new version of "first aid" on the OS X El Capitan update. It said a new keychain would be made as default and my old one moved aside (but not deleted). I want to restore my old keychain that has been moved aside but can't seem to find any information on how to do this. Many thanks.
As the issue posted above, there are kinds of reasons why you need to restore the Keychain password on a Mac, for example, you run into the issue of the keychain password not working on a Mac, you have turned the keychain off and removed the keychain password from your machine, you want to find saved passwords on Mac, etc.
No matter what is your final reason, you can always restore the keychain passwords on a Mac with the assistance of this post from iBoysoft, which explores all possible workarounds to recover the keychain passwords. You can try the one that fits you the most and bring the lost keychain credential info back!
How to restore the old keychain on Mac with Trash?
If you remove the keychain password to Mac Trash, you can open the Mac Trash for the deleted items. Generally, Mac Trash keeps the deleted files in 30 days by default so you can give the keychain restoration from Trash a shot.
- Just open Mac Trash with Spotlight Search shortcuts by pressing the Command + Space keys and entering Trash.
- Search for the keychain file and locate it you discarded before, then control-click the file to select "Put Back".
- Once the keychain is restored successfully, you can launch Keychain Access to type in the confidential automatically when accessing the apps or files.
If you deleted the keychains 30 days ago or you don't find the files in Mac Trash, please try the following solutions to find the keychain straightforwardly.
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How to restore the keychain on Mac via Finder?
The old keychain is always located in ~/Library/Keychains. If you don't want the new default keychain to overwrite the old ones, you can navigate the old one and rename it to login.keychain, then you're still using the old one. Here is how to perform that mission:
1. Open Finder by clicking the smile fave icon on the Mac Dock or search it with the Command + Space keys.
2. Click the Go menu on the upper left corner of the Mac desktop, then click Go to Folder from the pulldown menu.
3. Type in the following file path in the new window and click Enter to access the old keychain:~/Library/Keychains
4. Once you locate the old keychain file, rename it to this name:login.keychain
Note that if you don't know the password for the old keychain, you cannot unlock it. If the old login keychain's password is different from the user account password, you'll want to change the password to match.
How to restore keychains on Mac with Time Machine backup?
Time Machine is such a powerful utility that backs up every single file and the modifications made on them automatically as you enable it to do so, you can launch it to restore the keychain when you find it lost or inaccessible.
The whole process of restoring the keychain with Time Machine backup is quite easy, you can complete it with ease even if you're new to a Mac device:
- Connect the Time Machine backup disk to your Mac with a suitable USB port adapter or reader.
- Click on the Time Machine icon on the upper right corner of the Mac desktop, then click the Enter Time Machine option.
- Use the timeline or arrows to navigate to a date before you delete the keychain file.
- Select the targeted file and click Restore to bring it back!
With the old keychain file back, you needn't gather or type in your confidential info from sorts of apps or files one by one, which greatly saves your time and effort.
How to restore the keychain on a Mac with a professional data recovery tool?
Professional data recovery software stands out from all solutions mentioned before, which can retrieve deleted, missing, disappearing, or lost keychain files from a corrupted, inaccessible, unreadable, and even almost failing hard drive successfully. It has a stronger file scanning ability and enhanced data recovery capability, which scans and recovers all your desired files at a higher success rate!
Once you want to restore the keychain file, you can download iBoysoft Data Recovery Software to scan for it bit-by-bit and sector-by-sector. Just click the Download button below and let it scan for the lost files thoroughly and then you're all done!
Sum all up
Losing the keychain file always drives people crazy because you need to type in the password or confidential data time after time, while resetting the keychain always overwrites the old data.
If you have no interest in gathering your passwords or passcodes one more time, restoring the old keychain on Mac is the wiset option. We offer 4 ways for you to restore the old keychain file, and you can try the one that attracts you the most to complete this mission with ease!
