Use multiple Keychains to create security levels

Mar 26, '04 10:09:00AM

Contributed by: allard

If like me, you think that Keychain auto-locking is a fantastic feature from a security perspective ... but you find yourself really annoyed by having to type your Keychain password over and over again for some things that are not high security at all, this hint is for you.

  1. In Keychain Access (found in /Applications -> Utilities), choose File->New Keychain.
  2. Save the new keychain as "Low Security" or something like that.
  3. From the main window, click on "Show Keychains" to get the keychains drawer to appear. Choose your newly created keychain.
  4. Choose Edit -> Change Settings for Keychain "Low Security." Now, unclick both settings there.
  5. In the Keychain drawer, choose your default keychain and drag and drop the passwords you never want to type ever again into the "Low Security" keychain.
You can, of course, create lots of different keychains for all your different security levels. I have set my default one to lock after five minutes of inactivity and on sleep. I then use my Low Security one for my Instant Messenger passwords that I don't want to type every time my machine returns from sleep.

Have fun playing with your keychain!

Comments (1)


Mac OS X Hints
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20040321233233751