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  • Hacker News
  • This is good.
    by cute_boi
  • And yet if you click export it will gladly print out a plaintext csv with your whole life in passwords. Doesn't even attempt to zip it with password or something.
    by flyingshelf
  • that seems reasonable, as it is the lowest common denominator for interoperability

    what would be unfortunate is if it was in some format that couldn't be used by most other systems without extra work, and if the user wasn't able to use their own property to export their own passwords in a different format.

    by ImPostingOnHN
  • 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.
    by tencentshill
  • 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.
    by ok_dad
  • This was introduced, unannounced, in macOS 26.4! See my blog post for more information: https://lapcatsoftware.com/articles/2026/9/4.html
    by lapcat
  • 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.
    by Jhsto
  • Documentation explaining the Keychain security model: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/security/secb0694df1a/...
    by neilalexander
  • 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!
    by lubitelpospat
  • 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?
    by dfabulich
  • Does the macoOS login keychain get backed up by Time Machine backups

    Yes

    > in a way that could restore the keychain if the original machine's Secure Enclave is lost or destroyed?

    Apparently not

    by lapcat
  • This is pretty much how it's suppose to work...
    by shenenee
  • > This is pretty much how it's suppose to work...

    No, it's not, and that's not how it ever worked in macOS 26.3 and earlier.

    This change was introduced in 26.4 for some reason.

    by lapcat
  • I'm more interested by the fact that it apparently didn't work this way before Tahoe.
    by Retr0id
  • Maybe but this is unexpected if you need to restore from a backup..
    by winstonwinston
  • 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?

    by xmddmx
  • You don't have any backups at all if you never tried restoring and testing them
    by orbital-decay
  • > Disturbing if true, as it suggests my "everything" backups aren't really full backups at all.

    Randomly, Chromium-based browser profiles can't perfectly copy across macOS machines either, because of some HMAC hashing that happens to extensions.

    by ValentineC
  • The iCloud keychain is separate from the login keychain. The Passwords app doesn't use the login keychain.
    by lapcat