How to Edit Saved Passwords on Mac with Keychain Access

Do you use Keychain to store passwords, quickly sign in to websites on Safari, or log in to certain apps that are installed on your Mac? If so, you might want to make sure the information that’s used by Keychain is up to date. And this means occasionally you may need to edit saved passwords and login information within Keychain from MacOS.

Assuming you approve it, Keychain automatically stores your username and password data when you log in to a website or app for the first time. However, if you change the password for your online account later on from a different device, the login information that’s used by Keychain will become outdated therefore will no longer work as autofill information to sign in to the website. In this type of situation, you’ll need to manually type in your login information when you visit the website again and save the updated details in Keychain. Until you update your password with Keychain, anyway.

If you’re interested, read on to learn how you can edit saved passwords and login information on Mac using Keychain Access.

How to Edit Saved Passwords & Logins in Keychain on Mac

Manually updating the username and password details that are stored in Keychain is a pretty simple and straightforward procedure on macOS systems. Just follow the steps below to get started.

1. First, you need to access Spotlight search on your Mac. Click on the “magnifying glass” icon located at the top-right corner of your desktop. Alternatively, you can open Spotlight search by pressing Command + Space bar.
   
   
2. Next, type “Keychain” in the search field and open “Keychain Access” from the search results.
   
   
3. Once Keychain Access opens up, you’ll be able to see a list of all passwords stored on your Mac. You can either select “All Items” or “Passwords” under category. Now, narrow down your results using the search field at the top-right corner of this window. For example, you can start by just typing in the website’s name.
   
   
4. Once you find the account that you want to update the details for, right-click on the account and choose “Get Info” as shown below.
   
   
5. This will open a pop-up window on your screen with all the necessary details regarding the login information you used. You’ll notice that the password is hidden. To view this, check the box next to “Show password”.
   
   
6. Now, you’ll be prompted to enter your keychain password. By default, this is the same as your Mac’s user password which is used to log in to the system. Click “OK” once you’ve typed in the password.
   
   
7. You’ll now be able to view and edit the password that’s shown here. Type in the updated password and click “Save Changes” to store the new data in Keychain Access.
   
   

As you can see, it’s pretty easy to edit saved passwords and authentication details on Mac with Keychain Access.

Likewise, you’ll also be able to update the username in the same menu using the “Account” field and save the new information in Keychain Access for later use. By the way, this trick works on basically all versions of macOS and Mac OS X, as Keychain has been around for a very long time.

Keychain is an incredibly useful tool, allowing for password and login storage, secure password generation, easily finding a forgotten or lost web site passwords, and if you changed the password for your default login Keychain, you’ll need to type in the respective password to access and edit the stored password data.

Do you own other Apple devices like the iPhone or iPad? If so, you might be interested in learning how you can use Keychain to securely store your passwords on iOS and iPadOS devices as well. You can manually add passwords to Keychain just like a third-party password manager and even edit saved passwords on your iPhone and iPad. The changes you make to Keychain will be synced across all your other Apple devices with the help of iCloud.

Were you able to find and update the old passwords that were stored in Keychain Access on your Mac? What are your thoughts on Keychain integration on macOS, iPadOS, and iOS devices? Share your own tips, thoughts, and relevant experiences in the comments.