Mac Tips Daily! #143 - Forgotten Passwords

Keychain in OS X is a great place to store all of your passwords. In fact, when you login to your account, your keychain is unlocked, since you have authenticated by logging in. Whenever you use Safari to store a password, it saves it in the keychain - as do most Mac apps.

The problem I suffer from is that I constantly am forgetting a password to a site I have previously logged into before. Since some browsers don't work with the Keychain (Firefox.. Camino..etc), I don't have the convenience of Safari auto-filling in the blanks for me. By the way, this tip works for anything that you have saved in your Keychain.

Here is how I get my forgotten password.

Click on the 'Finder' to make it the active app. Now, from the menu, choose 'Go->Utilities'

Next, choose 'Keychain Access'

Now, to be quick, I usually type in the first few letters of the program or website I am looking for. This makes it easier to isolate my results to specific terms.
Once you have found it, 'double click' on it, and it will open a new window.

Add a check mark next to the box that says 'Show Password'. Before it shows it, you will need to 'Authenticate' with your login password that you use to login to OS X. I recommend you only choose 'Allow Once', since it's a better security practice.

Now you will have your forgotten password right before your eyes.

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