How to keep your iCloud Password safe. Backup your Keychain on MacOS
We all probably hate to remember 1mio different passwords. More frustrating is when the password doesn’t work anymore. To fix such problems we generally save our passwords to specific services (like 1Password, Dashlane, LastPass and more) or directly to Apple Keychain with iCloud Sync. Losing passwords can always happen, no matter the reason (sync errors, wrongly manual delete, etc.).
Consequence of such situations are dramatically, especially if you forgot the password, you lost a SIM card or your Gmail account is banned (in Facebook style, even without any reason). In such cases you cannot access a specific account, because recovery options are banned or lost and supporters don’t help you without such options. Remember to keep your Recovery E-Mails always up to date.
If you connected a credit card to the account, maybe you have a possibility to get account back. Maybe sending an ID can help, but doesn’t always happen.
We suggest you to store important Passwords with multiple versions, for example as Note and Password in Keychain (2 for iCloud and 2 locally saved to the Mac = 4 copies) or with different Mac Apps or other Methods. The same even for other topics, for example with Notes.
This is one of different reasons why keeping a backup of Apple Keychain is important. But how can we do that? Apple released some documents: here and here (you can import Chrome Passwords in Safari 14 too). I will show you another way.
First, you need at least 2 different iCloud accounts. You can open a new iCloud from any Apple devices (max 3/device, with a reset every 1–3+ years)
Please keep in mind that you DON’T need to open an Apple ID, you need to open an iCloud account. So please avoid to open the ID from here
Once you have two accounts, and you already have 1 Mac User associated with an iCloud, you have different options:
- use another Mac User to make the backup, so you create an user keychainbackup. Best option.
- you use Parallels Desktop and open a new Mac User directly in Parallels. This is the best option if you own different Mac User and iCloud and you don’t want to logout from current Mac User.
- you can do directly from current Mac User, but you need to logout/login a lot of times, by downloading/uploading your data to iCloud multiple times.
No matter what you choose, the steps are always the same:
- you need to connect the current iCloud and activate Keychain (in iCloud Preference Panel)
2. you need to wait until all passwords are downloaded from iCloud. Warning: this can take even up to 2 weeks (like i already saw in some Mac Users and Macs). Sometimes the import feature simply sucks and doesn’t work. The only option is to restart MacOS multiple times, and maybe disconnect/connect Keychain multiple times.
3. now you can disconnect your iCloud, this means you need to logout your current account in iCloud Preference Panel.
Then you need to choose the option “Keep password on the Mac”.
4. Once done, you will find all your Password on Apple Keychain. Now you need to connect another Account and merge iCloud/Mac Keychains. Once this step is done, you will see all previously password on both accounts.
5. Repeat same steps multiple times, for example 1x pro month. You simply need to logout the backup account by keeping passwords on the Mac, login with the original account, wait until all passwords are available, disconnect this account and redo a login with the backup account. In such way you have a new merged backup copy.
Do you have multiple iCloud? No problem, you can use this method even to merge multiple iCloud Keychains, but please remember, they merge other settings too!!!! If you connected for example 20 Gmail to Account A (under Users and Groups, second option from the left, see image below), 30 to Account B and now you merge all password to an Account C, you will see 50 Gmail Accounts connected (which is pretty annoying).
You simply need to login/logout (like step 5) with different iCloud accounts, until you did it for all iClouds. In such case i suggest you to use Parallels, like i do, which is much easier and faster. Is a bit annoying to do 1000x login/logout, but i still think better to “waste” time now, than “wasting time” once the password is deleted/lost.
By r/appledatahoarding: “Losing data is not our lifestyle”
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