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  • Hacker News
  • It's always a good idea to plan to hang on to your old machine for a few weeks to ensure everything works properly on the new one. Apple makes that much easier to forget.
  • It sounds like they are using envelope encryption and using the Secure Enclave to derive the row keys each time. Not really any easy way around that except they should provide a tool to export it, TBH. I am guessing they weren’t using envelope encryption before or they were deriving the row keys from the password. This is a secure design but more security usually means less usability these days.
  • This was introduced, unannounced, in macOS 26.4! See my blog post for more information: https://lapcatsoftware.com/articles/2026/9/4.html
  • Switching from macOS to Linux was quite painful because the security was so seamless on Mac. But I also realized I had no idea how my passwords are stored and under what guarantees. Learning and getting the hardware tokens to do it properly on Linux was a PITA. But reading this post made me feel a pinch better.
  • Recently tried to initialize one Mac from another - kids, never ever attempt that! Microsoft stuff doesn't get copied over properly, and refuses to behave even if you delete an account and create a new one - the only solution is re-installing the OS from scratch. And if you want to do so, and you erase the disk - surprise surprise, in recovery mode macOS doesn't work with the WPA2/WPA3 Enterprise network; you need to go and find a WPA2 network somewhere to re-install the OS. Does the recovery menu explain that somewhere? Hell no. Damn, installing a linux distro from a usb stick is a better experience than re-installing macOS these days!
  • Does the macoOS login keychain get backed up by Time Machine backups in a way that could restore the keychain if the original machine's Secure Enclave is lost or destroyed?
  • This is pretty much how it's suppose to work...
  • Disturbing if true, as it suggests my "everything" backups aren't really full backups at all.

    I wonder, if you have enabled iCloud keychain, does that provide another way to get your passwords back?

    Suppose my MacBook is stolen, but I still have my iPhone. Could I use the passwords app on the iPhone to retrieve my passwords. Would that include all of them or only a subset?

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